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LIBRARY. 4 
Cheological Seminary, 


| 
“ PB TNO FW EO RS NEE 
eo LOLS 2 N31.32 1867 
Naville, Ernest, 1816-1909. 
The heavenly Father 


ae 
2. Sah baa Gm 


: ~ 


THE 


HEAVENLY FATHER. 


Hectures on Modern Atheism. 


BY 


ERNEST NAVILLE, 


CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE (ACADEMY OF THE 
MORAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES), LATE PROFESSOR OF PHILOSO- 


PHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GENEVA. 


TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH 


By HENRY DOWNTON, M.A., 


ENGLISH CHAPLAIN AT GENEVA. 


— “To this deplorable error I desire to oppose faith in Gop as it has been 
given to the world by the Gospel — faith in the HEAVENLY FATHER.” 
Authors Letter to Professor Faraday (v. p. 193). 


BOSTON: 
WILLIAM V.. SPENCER. 
1867. 


CAMBRIDGE: 


PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. 


FeaRSEH CAS Gak: 


TueEsE Lectures, in their original form, were 
delivered at Geneva, and afterwards at Lausanne, 
before two auditories which together numbered 
about two thousand five hundred men. A Swiss 
Review published considerable portions of them, 
Which had. been taken down in short-hand, and 
on reading these portions, several persons, 
belonging to different countries, conceived the 
idea of translating the work when completed by 


the Author, and corrected for publication. Proof- 


sheets were accordingly sent to the translators as | 


they came from the press: and thus this volume 
will appear pretty nearly at the same time in 


several of the languages of Europe. 


1V NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR. 


The hearty kindness with which my fellow- 
countrymen received my words has been to me 
both a delight and an encouragement. The 
expressions of sympathy which have reached 
me from abroad allow me to hope that these 
pages, notwithstanding the deficiencies and im- 
perfections of which I am keenly sensible, reflect 
some few of the rays of the truth which God has 
deposited on the earth, thereby to unite in the 
same faith and hope men of every tongue and 


every nation. 
ERNEST NAVILLE. 


GENEVA, May, 1865. 


NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR. 


TuE appearance of this translation so long after 
that of the original work is in contradiction to the 
foregoing statement of the Author, that it would 


appear at nearly the same time with it. The 


a 


NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR. Vv 


delay has been due to causes beyond the trans- 
lator’s control—in part to the difficulty of 
revising the press at so great a distance from the 
place of publication, the translator being resident 
at Geneva. This latter circumstance causes an 
exception in another particular as regards this 
translation, the proposal to translate the Lectures 
having been made to the Author, and kindly 
accepted by him, during the course of their 
delivery at Geneva. 

The mere statement by the Author of the 
numbers, large as they were, of those who formed 
the auditories, can give but a small idea of the 
enthusiasm with which they were received by 
the crowds which thronged to hear them, and 
which were composed of all classes of persons, 
from the most distinguished savant to the intelli- 
gent artisan. 

It is not to be expected that the Lectures when 
read, even in the original, and still less in a 


translation, can produce the vivid impression 


Vi NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR. 


which they made on those, who, with the trans- 
lator, had the privilege of hearing them deliv- 
ered,—the Author having few rivals, on the 
Continent or elsewhere, in the graces of polished 
eloquence; but the subjects treated are, it is to 
be feared, of increasing importance, not abroad 
only, but in England ; and in fact one Lecture, 
the fourth, is in a large measure occupied with 
forms of atheism which owe their chief support 
to English authors. In that Lecture the Author 
shows that the spiritual origin of man cannot “be 
put out of sight beneath details of physiology and 
researches of natural history,” and that these not 
only “cannot settle,” but “cannot so much as 
touch the question.” 

The same Lecture is occupied in part by a 
practical refutation of the prejudice against 
religion drawn from the irreligious character of 
many men of science. The Author’s subject has 
led him in the present work to confine his illus- 


trations on this head to the question of natural 


NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR. Vil 


religion: but the translator will avow that a main 
motive with him to undertake the labor of this 
translation has been the wish to prove, in the 
instance of the distinguished Author himself, that 
men of incontestable eminence as metaphysical 
philosophers may hold and profess boldly their 
faith in doctrines, which many who affect to 
guide the religious opinions of our youth would 
teach them to despise as the heritage of narrow 
minds, and to cast away as incompatible with the 
highest intellectual cultivation. Such doctrines 
are those of the fall and ruin of man by nature, 
the necessity for Divine agency in his recovery, 
his need of propitiation by the sacrifice of the 
God-Man —?FHlomme-Dieu. ‘These truths are 
explicitly stated by the Author in his former 
course of lectures— La Vze Eternelle,* in which, 
while discoursing eloquently on that eternal life 
which is the portion of the righteous, he does not 


* A translation of this work, by an English lady, has 
been published by Mr. Dalton, 28, Cockspur street. 


Vill NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR. 


shrink from declaring his belief in its awful 
counterpart, the eternal condemnation of the 
wicked. , 

“The offence of the Cross” has not “ceased,” 
and many finding that these are the opinions of 
this Author, will perhaps lay down his book as 
unworthy of their attention: yet the editor, 
biographer, and expositor of the great French 
thinker, Maine de Biran, will not need intro- 
duction to the intellectual magnates of our own 
or of any country. The translator will be 
thankful, if some of those,—the youth more 
especially, —of his own country, who have been 
dazzled by the glare of false science, shall find 
in this work a help to the reassuring of their 
faith, while they learn in a fresh example that 
there are men quite competent to deal with the 
profoundest problems which can exercise our 
thoughts, who at the same time have come to a 
conviction, — compatible as they believe with 


principles of the clearest reason,—of the truth 


—————— 


NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR. 1X 


of those very doctrines which form the substance 
of evangelical Christianity. In saying this, the 
translator is far from claiming the Author as 
belonging to the same school of theology with 
himself: but differing with him on some impor- 
tant points, he has yet believed that this volume 
is calculated to be of much use in the present 
condition of religious thought in England, and 
in this hope and prayer he commends it to the 
blessing of Him, whose being and attributes, as 
our God and Father in Jesus Christ, are therein 


asserted and defended. 


GENEVA, November, 1865. 


Ast " oe a cat r Ny 
f iP, Veda ‘ 
7%. ge 


Bera 


a. ie ee: 


7 A bidk 


4 ay A 


CONDE Nav. 


LECTURE I. 


PAGE 
LIS ALOU CrOD ick: ae at een Se ad a cee ed aie Cae Lay 


LECTURE II. 


IPE WI THOULL GOD -. a lawl ogee eee ag karl Coes AS 
PART 1: — ‘LHe INDIVIDUAR. | ter et, oan ee O45 
PARTE LI: =~ SOCIETY. 4)! ouecacetaee sats iten tv on ae 7 2 


LECTURE III. 


HAE VIVAL, OU ye TIEISM «| +.) 5 miaeemees che ev ahe ey Dl7 


LECTURE IV. 


eR ar A ATT An TOR AAs) sits otk 7) a yews Pret oa st tre 17'S 


LECTURE V. 


PTE lak fo Ba) Met a uc dae eee! she a k's sha) 245 


LECTURE VI. 


pL xis (eA Me ee in ea ete sees ste e:; 207 


LECTURE VII. 


ite FATHER 1) Pate Eg 0, o-e flee lapis 3s ee, SA 


“5 t 
* 
- 48 ‘“ 


LECT UR TT, 


OV haw Di As, OFA GOD: 
(At Geneva, 17th Nov. 1863. — At Lausanne, 11th Jan. 1864.) 


GENTLEMEN, 

Some five-and-twenty or thirty years 
ago, a German writer published a piece of verse 
which began in this way: “Our hearts are op- | 


pressed with the emotions of a pious sadness, at 


the thought of the ancient Jehovah who is pre- | 
paring to. die.” The verses were a dirge upon 
the death of the living God; and the author, like 
a well educated son of the nineteenth century, 
bestowed a few poetic tears upon the obsequies 
of the Eternal. 

I was young when these strange words met my 
eyes, and they produced in me a kind of painful 
bewilderment, which has, I think, for ever en- 
graven them in my memory. Since then, I have 
had occasion to learn by many tokens that this 


fact was not at all an exceptional one, but that 
I 


2 LECTURE I. 


men of influence, famous schools, important ten-- 
dencies of the modern mind, are agreed in pro- 
claiming that the time of religion is over, of 
religion in all its forms, of religion in the largest 
sense of the word. Beneath the social disturb- 
ances of the day, beneath the discussions of 
science, beneath the anxiety of some and the 
sadness of others, beneath the ironical and more 
or less insulting joy of a few, we read at the 
foundation of many intellectual manifestations of 
our time these gloomy words: “ Henceforth no 


99 


more God for humanity!” What may well send 
a shudder of fright through society — more than 
threatening war, more than possible revolution, 
more than the plots which may be hatching in 
the dark against the security of persons or of 
property —is, the number, the importarice, and 
the extent of the efforts which are making in our 
days to extinguish in men’s souls their faith in 
the living God. 

This fear, Gentlemen, I should wish to com- 
municate to you, but I should wish also to confine 
it within its just limits. Religion (I take this 
term in its most general acceptation) is not, as 
many say that it is, either dead or dying. I want 
no other proof of this than the pains which so 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. 3 


many people are taking to kill it. It is often 
those who say that it is dead, or falling rapidly 
into dissolution, who apply themselves to this 
work. They are too ‘generous, no doubt, to 
make a violent attack upon a corpse; and it is 
easy to understand, judging by the intensity of 
their exertions, that in their own opinion they 
have something else to do than to give a finish- 
ing stroke to the dying. 

Present circumstances are serious, not for reli- 
gion itself, which cannot be imperilled, but for 
minds which run the risk of losing their balance 
and their support. Let it be observed, however, 
that when it is said that we are living in extraor- 
dinary times, that we are passing through an 
unequalled crisis, that the like of what we see 
“was never seen before, and so on, we must 
always regard conclusions of this nature with 
distrust. Our personal interest in the circum- 
stances which immediately surround us produces 
on them for us the magnifying effect of a micro- 
scope: and our principal reason for thinking 
that our epoch is more extraordinary than others, | 
is for the most part that we are living in our | 
own epoch, and have not lived in others. A 
mind attentive to this fact, and so placed upon 


= 


4 LECTURE I. 


its guard against all tendency to exaggeration, 
will easily perceive that ‘religious thought has 
_ in former times passed through shocks as pro- 
found and as dangerous as those of which we are 
witnesses. Still the crisis is a realone. Taking 
into account its extent in our days, we may say 
that it is new for the generation to which we 
belong; and it is worthy of close consideration. 
To-day, as an introduction to this grave subject, 
I should wish first to determine as precisely as 
possible what is our idea of God; to inquire 
next from what sources we derive it; and lastly 
to point out, as clearly as I may, the limits 
and the nature of the discussion to which | 
invite you. | 

In asking what sense we must give to the word 
“God,” Iam not going to propose to you a meta- 
physical definition, or any system of my own: I 
am inquiring what is in fact the idea of God in 
the bosom of modern society, in the souls which 
live by this idea, in the hearts of which it consti- 
tutes the joy, in the consciences of which it is the 
support. 

When our thoughts rise above nature and hu- 
manity to that invisible Being whom we speak of 
as God, what is it which passes in our souls? 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. 5 


They fear, they hope, they pray, they offer 
thanksgiving. If a man finds himself in one of 
those desperate positions in which all human / 
help fails, he turns towards Heaven, and says, 
My God! If we are witnesses of one of those 
instances of revolting injustice which stir the con- 
science in its profoundest depths, and which 
could not on earth meet with adequate punish- 
ment, we think within ourselves,— There is a 
Judge on high! If we are reproved by our own 
conscience, the voice of that conscience, which 
disturbs and sometimes torments us, reminds us 
that though we may be shut out from all human 
view, there is no less an Eye which sees us, and 
a just award awaiting us. Thus it is (I am seek- 
ing to establish facts) that the thought of God 
operates, so to speak, in the souls of those who 
believe in Him. If you look for the meaning 
common to all these manifestations of man’s 
heart, what do you find? Fear, hope, thanks-| 
giving, prayer. To whom is all this addressed? 
To a Power intelligent and free, which knows us, 
and is able to act upon our destinies. This is the 
idea which is found at the basis of all religions ; 
not only of the religion of the only God, but of 
the most degraded forms of idolatrous worship. 


6 LECTURE I. 


All religion rests upon the sentiment of one or 
more invisible Powers, superior to nature and to 
humanity. 

When philosophical curiosity is awakened, it 
disengages from the general sentiment of power 
the definite idea of the cause which becomes the 
explanation of the phenomena. The reason of 
man, by virtue of its very constitution, finds a 
need of conceiving of an absolute cause which 
escapes by its eternity the lapse of time, and 
by its infinite character the bounds of limited 
existences; a principle, the necessary being 
of which depends on no other; in a word a 
unique cause, establishing by its unity the uni- 
versal harmony. So, when reason meets with 
the idea of the sole and Almighty Creator, it 
attaches itself to it as the only thought which 
accounts to it for the world and for itself. 

The Creator is, first of all, He whose glory the 
heavens declare, while the earth makes known 
the work of His hands. He is the Mighty One 
and the Wise, whose will has given being to 
nature, and who directs at once the chorus of 
stars in the depths of the heavens, and the drop 
of vital moisture in the herb which we tread 
under foot. 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. Y] 


If, after having looked around, we turn our 
regard in upon ourselves, we then discover other 
heavens, spiritual heavens, in which shine, like 
stars of the first magnitude, those objects which 
cause the heart of man to beat, so long as he 
is not self-degraded: truth, goodness, beauty. 
Now we feel that we are made for this higher 
world. Material enjoyments may enchain our 
will; we may, in the indulgence of unworthy 
passions, pursue what in its essence is only evil, 
error, and deformity; but, if all the rays of our 
true nature are not extinguished, a voice issues 
from the depth of our souls and protests against 
our debasement. Our aspirations toward these 
spiritual excellences are unlimited. Our thought 
sets out on its course: have we solved one ques- 
tion? immediately new questions arise, which 
press, no less than the former, for an answer. 
Our conscience speaks: have we come in a cer- 
tain degree to realize what is right and good? 
immediately conscience demands of us still more. 
Is our feeling for beauty awakened? Well, sirs, 
when an artist is satisfied with the work of his 
hands, do you not know at once what to think of 
him? Do you not know that that man will never 
do any thing great, who does not see shining in 


8° LECTURE I. 


his horizon an ideal which stamps as imperfect 
all that he has been able to realize? ‘The voice 
which urges us on through life from the cradle to 
the grave, and which, without allowing us a mo- 
ment’s pause, is ever crying+— Forward ! forward! 
this voice is not more imperious than the noble 
instinct which, in the view of beauty, of truth, of 
good, is also saying to us— Forward! forward! 
and, with the American poet, Ewcelszor!/ higher, 
ever higher! Many of you know that instinct 
familiar to the climbers of the Alps,* as they are 
called, who, arrived at one summit, have no rest 
so long as there remains a loftier height in view. 
Such is our destiny; but the last peak is veiled 
in shining clouds which conceal it from our sight. 
Perfection, — this is the point to which our nature 
aspires ; but it is the ladder of Jacob: we see the 
foot which rests upon the earth ; the summit hides 
itself from our feeble view amidst the splendors 
of the infinite. 

These objects of our highest desires— beauty 
in its supreme manifestation, absolute holiness, 
infinite truth— are united in one and the same 
thought— God! The attributes of the spiritual 
are never in us but as borrowed attributes; they 

* Aux grimpeurs des Alpes. 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. 9 


dwell naturally in Him who is their source. God 
is the truth, not only because He knows all 
things, but because He is the very object of our 
thoughts; because, when we study the universe, 
we do but spell out some few of the laws which 
He has imposed on things ; because, to know truth 
is never any thing else than to know the creation or 
the Creator, the world or its eternal Cause. God 
itis who must be Himself the satisfaction of that 
craving of the conscience which urges us towards 
holiness. If we had arrived at the highest de- 
gree of virtue, what should we have done? We 
should have realized the plan which He has pro- 
posed to spiritual creatures in their freedom, at 
the same time that He is directing the stars in 
their courses by that other word which they ac- 
complish without having heard it. God is the 
eternal source of beauty. He it is who has shed 
grace upon our valleys, and majesty upon our 
mountains; and He, again, it is (I quote St. 
Augustine) who acts within the souls of artists, 
those great artists, who, urged unceasingly to- 
wards the regions of the ideal, feel themselves 
drawn onwards towards a divine world. 

God then above all is He who 7zs,—the Ab- 
solute, the Infinite, the Eternal,—éin the ever 


IO LECTURE I. 


mysterious depths of His own essence. In His 
relation to the world, He is the cause; in His re- 
lation to the lofty aspirations of the soul, He is 
the ideal. He is the ideal, because being the 
absolute cause, He is the unique source, at 
the same time that He is the object, of our aspi- 
rations: He is the absolute cause, because being 
He who zs, in His supreme unity, nothing could 
have existence except by the act of His power. 
Weare able already to recognize here, in passing, 
the source at which are fed the most serious aber- 
rations of religious thought. Are truth, holiness, 
beauty considered separately from the real and 
infinite Spirit in which is found their reason for 
existing? We see thus appear philosophies noble 
in their commencement, but which soon descend 
a fatal slope. The divine, so-called, is spoken of 
still; but the divine is an abstraction, and apart 
from God has no real existence. If truth, beauty, 
holiness are hot the attributes of an eternal mind, 
but the simple expression of the tendencies of 
our soul, man may render at first a sort of. wor- 
ship to these lofty manifestations of his own 
nature; but logic, inexorable logic, forces him 
soon to dismiss the divine to the region of chime- 
ras. These rays are extinguished together with 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. Migs 4 


their luminous centre; the soul loses the secret 
of its destinies, and, in the measureless grief 
which possesses it, it proclaims at length that 
all is vanity. We shall have, in the sequel, to 
be witnesses together of this sorrowful spectacle. 

Such is the basis of our idea of God: we must 
now discover its summit. Before the thought of 
this Sovereign Being, by whose Will are all 
things, and who is without cause and without 
beginning, our soul is overwhelmed. We are so 
feeble! the thought of absolute power crushes us. 
Creatures of a day, how should we understand 
the Eternal? Frail as we are, and evil, we 
tremble at the idea of holiness. But milder ac- 
cents, as you know, have been heard upon the 
earth: This Sovereign God— He loves us. In 
proportion as this idea gains possession of our 
understanding, in the same proportion our soul 
has glimpses of the paths of peace. He loves us, 
and we take courage. He hears us, and prayer 
rises to Him with the hope of being heard. He 
governs all, and we confide in His Providence. 
When your gaze is directed towards the depths 
of the sky, does it never happen to you to remain 
in a manner terrified, as you contemplate those 
worlds which without end are added to other 


I2 LECTURE I. 


worlds? As you fix your thoughts upon the im- 
measurable abysses of the firmament,—as you 
say to yourselves that how far soever you put 
back the boundary of the skies, if the universe 
ended there, then the universe, with its suns and 
its groups of stars, would still be but a solitary 
lamp, shining as a point in the midst of the 
limitless darkness, —have you never experienced 
a sort of mysterious fright and giddiness? At 
such a time turn your eyes upon nearer objects. 
He who has made the heavens with their im- 
mensity, is He who makes the corn to spring 
forth for your sustenance, who clothes the fields 
with the flowers which rejoice your sight, who 
gives you the fresh breath of morning, and the 
calm of a lovely evening: it is He, without 
whose permission nothing occurs, who watches 
over you and over those you love. Possess 
yourselves thoroughly with this thought of love, 
then lift once more your eyes to the sky, and 
from every star, and from the worlds which are 
lost in the furthest depths of space, shall fall 
upon your brow, no longer clouded, a ray of love 
and of peace. Then with a feeling of sweet affi- 
ance you will adopt as your own those words of 
an ancient prophet: “Whither shall I go from 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. I3 


Thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from Thy 
Presence? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art 
there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou 
art there. If I take the wings of the morning, 
and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even 
there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right 
hand shall hold me:”* then you will understand 
those grand and sweet words of Saint Augustine, 
some of the most beautiful that ever fell from the 


lips of a man: “Are you afraid of God? Runto | ~ 


His arms !” 

Thus our idea of God is completed, —the 
idea of Him whom, in a feeling of filial confi- 
dence, we name the Father, and whom we call 
the Heavenly Father, while we adore that ab- 
solute holiness, of which the pure brightness 
of the firmament is for us the visible and mag- 
nificent symbol. Goodness is the secret of the 
universe; goodness it is which has directed 
power, and placed wisdom at its service. 

My object is not to teach this idea, but to de- 
fend it: it is not, I say, to teach it, for we all 
possess it. There is no one here who has not re- 
ceived his portion of the sacred deposit. This 
sacred idea may be veiled by our sorrows, per- 


* Psalm cxxxix. 7-10. 


14 LECTURE I. 


verted by our errors, obscured by our faults; but, 
however thick be the layer of ashes heaped to- 
gether in the depth of our souls — look closely : 
the sacred spark is not extinguished, and a fa- 
vorable breath may still rekindle the flame. 
We have considered the essential elements of 
which our idea of God is composed. And 
whence comes this idea? What is its historical 
origin? I do not ask what is the historical origin 
of religion, for religion does not take its rise in 
history ; it 1s met with everywhere and always in 
humanity. Those who deny this are compelled 
to “search in the darkness for some obscure ex- 
ample known only to themselves, as if all natural 
inclinations were destroyed by the corruption of a 
people, and as if, as soon as there are any mon- 
sters, the species were no longer any thing.” * 
The consciousness of a world superior to the 
domain of experience is one of the attributes 
characteristic of our nature. “If there had ever 
been, or if there still anywhere existed, a people 
entirely destitute of religion, it would be in con- 
sequence of an exceptional downfall which would 
be tantamount to a lapse into animality.”+ Iam 


yout Rousseau. 


+ Les Origines Indo-Européennes, by Adolphe Pictet, ii. 651. 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. 15 


not therefore inquiring after the origin of the idea 
and sentiment of the Deity, in a general sense, 
but after the origin of the idea of the only and 
Almighty Creator as we possess it. In fact, if 
religion is universal, distinct knowledge of the 
Creator is not so. 

Our own past strikes its roots into the historic 
soil which, in the matter of creeds, is known by 
the name of paganism or idolatry. At first 
sight what do we find in the opinions of that 
ancient world? No trace of the divine unity. 
Adoration is dispersed over a thousand different 
beings. Not only are the heavenly bodies adored 
and the powers of nature, but men, animals, and 
inanimate objects. The feeling of the holiness 
of God is not less wanting, it would seem, than 
the idea of His unity. Religion serves as a pre- 
text for the unchaining of human passions. ‘This 
is the case unfortunately with religion in general, 
and the true religion is no exception to the rule: 
but what characterizes paganism is that in its 
case religion, by its own proper nature, favors 
the development of immorality. Celebrated 
shrines become the dens of a prostitution which 
forms part of the homage rendered to the gods; 
the religious rites of ancient Asia, and those of 


16 LECTURE I. 


Greece which fell under their influence, are no- 
torious for their lewdness. ‘The temples of false 
deities, too often defiled by debauchery, are too 
often also dishonored by frightful sacrifices. 
The ancient civilization of Mexico was elegant 
and even refined in some respects ; but the altars 
were stained, every year, with the blood of thou- 
sands of human beings; and the votaries of this 
sanguinary worship devoured, in solemn ban- 
quets, the quivering limbs of the victims. Let 
us not look for examples too far removed from 
the civilization which has produced our own. In 
the Greek and Roman world, the stories of the 
gods were not very edifying, as every one knows: 
the worship of Bacchus gave no encouragement 
to temperance, and the festivals of Venus were 
not a school of chastity. It would be easy, by 
bringing together facts of this sort, to form a pic- 
ture full of sombre coloring, and to conclude that 
our idea of God, the idea of the only and holy 
God, does not proceed from the impure sources 
of idolatry. The proceeding would be brief and 
convenient; but such an estimation of the facts, 
false because incomplete, would destroy the value 
of the conclusion. In pagan antiquity, in fact, 
the abominations of which I have just reminded 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. 17 


you did not by themselves make up religious tra- 
dition. Side by side with a current of darkness } 
and impurity, we meet with a current of pure 
ideas and of strong gleams of the day. 
Almost all the pagans seem to have had a / 
glimpse of the Divine unity over the multiplicity | 
of their idols, and of the rays of the Divine holi- 
ness across the saturnalia of their Olympi. It 
was a Greek who wrote these words: “ Nothing 
is accomplished on the earth without Thee, 
O God, save the deeds which the wicked 
perpetrate in their folly.”* It was in a theatre 
at Athens that the chorus of a tragedy sang, 
more than two thousand years ago: “May 
destiny aid me to preserve unsullied the purity 
of my words and of all my actions, accord- 
ing to those sublime laws which, brought forth 
in the celestial heights, have Heaven alone for 
their father, to which the race of mortal men 
did not give birth, and which oblivion shall 
never entomb. In them is a supreme God, 
and one who waxes not old.” + It would be easy _ 
to multiply quotations of this order, and to show 
you in the documents of Grecian and Roman civ- 
ilization numerous traces of the knowledge of the 


* Cleanthes, Lymn to Fupiter. + Sophocles. Gedépus R. 
2 


18 ‘LECTURE ‘I. 


only and holy God. Listen now to a voice which 
has come forth actually from the recesses of the 
sepulchre: it reaches us from ancient Egypt. 

In Egypt, as you know, the degradation of the 
religious idea was in popular practice complete. 
But, under the confused accents of superstition, 
the science of our age is succeeding in catching 
from afar the vibrations of a sublime utterance. 
In the coffins of a large number of mummies 
have been discovered rolls of papyrus containing 
a sacred text which is called the Book of the 
Dead. Here is the translation of some frag- 
ments which appear to date from a very remote 
epoch. It is God who speaks: “I am the Most 
Holy, the Creator of all that replenishes the 
earth, and of the earth itself, the habitation of 
mortals. I am the Prince of the infinite ages. 
I am the great and mighty God, the Most High, 
shining in the midst of the careering stars and of 
the armies which praise me above thy head... . 
It is I who chastise and who judge the evil-doers, 
and the persecutors of godly men. I discover 
and confound the liars . . . I am the all-seeing 
Judge and Avenger. . . the guardian of my 
laws in the land of righteousness.” * 


* Handbuch der gesammten tigyptischen Alterthumskunde, 
von Dr. Max Uhlemann. Leipzig, 1857. 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. IQ 


These words are found mingled, in the text 
from which I extract them, with allusions to in- 
ferior deities ; and it must be acknowledged that 
the translation of the ancient documents of Egypt 
is still uncertain enough. Still this uncertainty 
does not appear to extend to the general sense 
and bearing of the recent discoveries of our 
savants. Myself a simple learner from the 
masters of the science, I can only point out to 
you the result of their studies. Now, this is 
what the masters tell us as to the actual state of 
mythological studies. ‘Traces are found almost 
everywhere, in the midst of idolatrous supersti- 
tions, of a religion comparatively pure, and often 
stamped with a lofty morality. Paganism is not | 
a simple fact: it offers to view in the same bed | 
two currents, the one pure and the other impure. 
What is the relation between these two currents? | 
A passage in a writer of the Latin Church throws 
a vivid light upon their actual relation in practi- 
cal life. It is thus that Lactantius expresses him- 
self: “When man (the pagan) finds himself in 
adversity, then it is that he has recourse to God 
(to the only God). Ifthe horrors of war threaten 
him, if there appear a contagious disease, a 
drought, a tempest, then he has recourse to God. 


20 LECTURE “I. 


. If he is overtaken by a storm at sea, and is 
in danger of perishing, immediately he calls upon 
God; if he finds himself in any urgent peril, he 
has recourse to God. . . . Thus men bethink 
themselves of God when they are in trouble; but 
as soon as the danger is past, and they are no 
longer in any fear, we see them return with joy 
to the temples of the false gods, make to them 
libations, and offer sacrifices to them.” * This is 
a striking picture of the workings of man’s heart 
in all ages; for, as our author observes, “God is 
never so much forgotten of men as when they are 
quietly enjoying the favors and blessings which 
He sends them.”+ As regards our special ob- 
ject, this page reveals in a very instructive 
manner the religious condition of heathen an- 
tiquity. The thought of the sovereign God was 
stifled without being extinguished ; it awoke be- 
neath the pressure of anguish; but ordinary life, 
the life of every day, belonged to the easy 
worship of idols. 

It may now be asked what is the historical 
relation between the two currents of paganism of 
which we have just established the actual relation 
in practical life. Did humanity begin with a 


* Institutions divines, ii. 1. + Id. 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. 21 


coarse fetichism, and thence rise by slow degrees 
to higher conceptions? Do the traces of a com- 
paratively pure monotheism first show themselves 
in the most recent periods of idolatry? Con- 
temporary science inclines more and more to 
answer in the negative. It is in the most ancient 
historical ground (allow me these geological 
terms) that the laborious investigators of the past 
meet with the most elevated ideas of religion. 
Cut to the ground a young and vigorous beech- 
tree, and come back a few years afterwards: in 
place of the tree cut down you will find coppice- 
wood; the sap which nourished a single trunk 
has been divided amongst a multitude of shoots. 
This comparison expresses well enough the 
opinion which tends to prevail amongst our 
savants on the subject of the historical develop- 
ment of religions. ‘The idea of the only God 
is at the root,—it is primitive; polytheism 
is derivative. A forgotten, and as it were slum- 
bering, monotheism exists beneath the worship 
of idols; it is the concealed trunk which sup- 
ports them, but the idols have absorbed all the 
sap. The ancient God (allow me once more a 
comparison) is like a sovereign confined in 
the interior of his palace: he is but seldom 


22 LECTURE I. 


thought of, and only on great occasions ; his 
ministers alone act, entertain requests, and re- 
ceive the real homage. 

The proposition of the historical priority of 
monotheism is very important, and is not univer- 
sally admitted. It will therefore be necessary to 
show you, by a few quotations at least, that I am 
not speaking rashly. One of the most accredited 
mythologists of our time, Professor Grimm, of 
Berlin, writes as follows: “The monotheistic 
form appears to be the more ancient, and that 
out of which antiquity in its infancy formed poly- 
theism. . . . All mythologies lead us to this con- 
clusion.” * Among the French savants devoted 
to the study of ancient Egypt, the Vicomte de 
Rongé stands in the foremost rank. This is 
what he tells us: “In Egypt the supreme God 
was called the one God, living indeed, He who 
made all that exists, who created other beings. 
He is the Generator existing alone who made 
the heaven and created the earth.” The writer 
informs us that these ideas are often found repro- 
duced “in writings the date of which is anterior 
to Moses, and many of which formed part of the 
most ancient sacred hymns;” then he comes to 


* Deutsche Mythol. Third edition, page LXIV. 


i, =" Wee J 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. 23 


this conclusion: “Egypt, in possession of an ad- 
mirable fund of doctrines respecting the essence 
of God, and the immortality of the soul, did not 
for all that defile herself the less by the most 
degrading superstitions; we have in her, sufh- 
ciently summed up, the religious history of all 
antiquity.” * As regards the civilization which 
flourished in India, M. Adolphe Pictet, in his 
learned researches on the subject of the primitive 
Aryas, arrives, in what concerns the religious 
idea, at the following conclusion: “To sum up: 
primitive monotheism of a character more or less 
vague, passing gradually into a polytheism still 
simple, such appears to have been the religion of 
the ancient Aryas.” { One of our fellow-country- 
men, who cultivates with equal modesty and 
perseverance the study of religious antiquities, 
has procured the greater part of the recent works 
published on these subjects in France, Germany, 
and England. He has read them, pen in hand, 
and, at my urgent request, he has kindly allowed 
me to look over his notes which have been long 
accumulating. I find the following sentence in 
the manuscripts which he has shown me: “The 


* Annales de philosophie chrétienne, t. 59, p. 228.7. 
+ Les Origines Indo-Européennes, ii. 720. 


24 LECTURE I. 


general impression of all the most distinguished 
mythologists of the present day is, that monothe- 
ism is at the foundation of all pagan mythology.” 

The savants, I repeat, do not unanimously 
accept these conclusions: savants, like other 
men, are rarely unanimous. It is enough for my 
purpose to have shown that it is not merely the 
erand tradition guaranteed by the Christian faith, 
but also the most distinctly marked current of 
contemporary science, which tells us that God 
shone upon the cradle of our species. ‘The au- 
gust Form was veiled, and idolatry with its train 
of shameful rites shows itself in history as the 
result of a fall which calls for a restoration, 
rather than as the point of departure of a con- 
tinued progress. 

The august Form was veiled. Who has lifted 
the veil? Not the priests of the idols. We meet 
in the history of paganism with movements of 
reformation, or, at the very least, of religious 
transformation: Buddhism is a memorable ex- 
ample of this; but it is not a return towards 
the pure traditions of India or of Egypt which 
has caused us to know the God whom we 
adore. Has the veil been lifted by reflection, 
that is to say by the labors of philosophers? 


— ee ee 


a a 


- 


: 


em 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. 25 


Philosophy has rendered splendid services to 
the world. It has combated the abominations 
of idolatry; it has recognized in nature the 
proofs of an intelligent design ; it has discerned 
in the reason the deeply felt need of unity; it 
has indicated in the conscience the sense of good, 
and shown its characteristics; it has contem- 
plated the radiant image of the supreme beauty 
— still it is not philosophy which has restored for 
humanity the idea of God. Its lights mingled 
with darkness remained widely scattered, and 
without any focus powerful enough to give 
them strength for enlightening the world. To 
seek God, and consequently to know Him 
already in a certain measure; but to remain 
always before the altar of a God glimpsed only 
by an é/te of sages, and continuing for the mul- 
titudes the unknown God: such was the wisdom 
of the ancients. It prepared the soil; but it 
did not deposit in it the germ from which the 
idea of the Creator was to spring forth living 
and strong, to overshadow with its branches all 7 
the nations of the earth. And when this idea 
appeared in all its splendor, and began the con- 
quest of the universe, the ancient philosophy, 
which had separated itself from heathen forms 


26 LECTURE I. 


of worship, and had covered them with its 
contempt, contracted an alliance with its old ad- 
versaries. It accepted the wildest interpretations 
of the common superstitions, in order to be able 
to league itself with the crowd in one and the 
same conflict with the new power which had 
just appeared in the world. And this sums up 
in brief compass the whole history of philoso- 
phy in the first period of our era. 

The monotheism of the moderns does not pro- 
ceed historically from paganism; it was prepared 
by the ancient philosophy, without being pro- 
duced by it. Whence comes it then? On this 
head there exists no serious difference of opinion. 
Our knowledge of God is the result of a tradi- 
tional idea, handed down from generation to 
generation in a well-defined current of history. 
Much obscurity still rests upon man’s earliest 
religious history, but the truth which I am 
pointing out to you is solidly and clearly estab- 
lished. Pass, in thought, over the terrestrial 
globe. All the superstitions of which history 
preserves the remembrance are practised at this 
day, either in Asia or in Africa, or in the isles 
of the Ocean. The most ridiculous and fero- 
cious rites are practised still in the light of the 


ee Ee ——-s 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. an 


same sun which gilds, as he sets, the spires and 
domes of our churches. At this very day, there 
are nations upon the earth which prostrate them- 
selves before animals, or which adore sacred 
trees. At this very day, perhaps at this hour in 
which I am addressing you, human victims are 
bound by the priests of idols; before you have 
left this room, their blood will have defiled the 
altars of false deities. At this very day, numer- 
ous nations, which have neither wanted time for 
self-development, nor any of the resources of 
civilization, nor clever poets, nor profound philos- 
ophers, belong to the religion of the Brahmins, 
or are instructed in the legends which serve as 
a mask to the pernicious doctrines of Buddha. 
Where do we meet with the clear idea of the 
Creator? In a unique tradition which proceeds 
from the Jews, which Christians have diffused, 
and which Mahomet corrupted. God is known, 
with that solid and general knowledge which 
founds a settled doctrine and a form of worship, 
under the influence of this tradition and nowhere 
else. We assert this as a simple fact of contem- 
porary history; and there is scarcely any fact in 
history better established. 

The light comes to us from the Gospel. This 


28 LECTURE I. 


light did not appear as a sudden and absolutely 
new illumination. It had cast pale gleams on 
the soul of the heathen in their search after the 
unknown God; it had shone apart upon that 
strange and glorious people which bears the 
name of Israel. Israel had preserved the primi- 
tive light encompassed by temporary safe-guards. 
It was the flame of a lamp, too feeble to live in 
the open air, and which remained shut up in a 
vase, until the moment when it should have 
become strong enough to shine forth from its 
shattered envelope upon the world. The wor- 
ship of Jehovah is a local worship; but this 
worship, localized for a time, is addressed to the 
only and sovereign God. ‘To every nation which 
says to Israel as Athaliah to Joash: 


I have my God to serve — serve thou thine own,* 
Israel replies with Joash: 


Nay, Madam, but my God is God alone; 
Him must thou fear: thy God is nought —a dream! f 


Israel does not affirm merely that the God of 
Israel is the only true God, but affirms moreover 
* J'ai mon Dieu que je sers, vous servirez le votre. . 


Tt Il faut craindre le mien; 
Lui seul est Dieu, Madame, et le votre n’est rien. 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. 29 


that the time will come when all the earth will 
acknowledge Him for the only and universal 
Lord. A grand thought, a grand hope, is in the 
soul of this people, and assures it that all nations 
shall one day look to Jerusalem. Its prophets 
threaten, warn, denounce chastisements, predict 
terrible catastrophes; but in the midst of their 
severer utterances breaks forth ever and again. 
the song of future triumph: 


Uplift, Jerusalem, thy queenly brow: 
Light of the nations, and their glory, thou! * 


Thus is preserved in the ancient world the 
knowledge of God amongst an exceptional peo- 
ple, amidst the darkness of idolatry and the 
elimmerings of an imperfect wisdom. And not 
only is it preserved, but it shines with a bright- 
ness more and more vivid and pure. The 
conception of sovereignty which constitutes its 
foundation, is crowned as it advances by the con- 
ception of love. At length He appears by whom 
the universal Father was to be known of all. 

Have you not remarked the surprising simpli- 
city with which Jesus speaks of His work? He 


* Leve, Jérusalem, léve ta téte altiére !! 
Les peuples & l’envi marchent a ta lumiere. 


30 LECTURE I. 


speaks of the universe and of the future as a 
lawful proprietor speaks of his property. The 
field in which the Word shall be sown is the 
world. He introduces that worship in spirit 
and in truth before which all barriers shall fall. 
He knows that humanity belongs to Him; and 
when He foretells His peaceful conquest, one 
knows not which predominates in His words, 
simplicity or grandeur. Now this predicted 
work has been done, is being done, and will 
be done. No one entertains any serious doubt 
of this. The idea of God, as it exists amongst 
Christian peoples, bears on its brow the certain 
sign of victory. 

In many respects, we are passing through the 
world in times which are not extraordinary, and 
among things little worthy of lasting record. 
Still great events are being accomplished before 
our eyes. The ancient East is shaken to its 
foundations. The work of foreign missions is 
taken up again with fresh energy. Ships, as 
they leave the shores of Europe, carry with 
them, — together with those who travel for pur- 
poses of commerce, or from curiosity, or as 
soldiers, —those new crusaders who exclaim: 
God wills it! and are ready to march to their 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. 31 


death in order to proclaim the God of life to na- 
tions plunged in darkness. The advances of 
industry, the developments of commerce, the 
calculations of ambition, all conspire to diffuse 
spiritual light over the globe. These are noble 
spectacles, revealing clearly the traces of a supe- 
rior design, which the mighty of this world are 
accomplishing, even by the craft and violence 
of their policy: they are the manifest instruments 
of a Will to which oftentimes they are insensible. 
The knowledge of God is extending; and while 
it is extending, it is enriching itself with its own 
conquests. Just as it absorbed the living sap of 
the doctrines of the Greeks, so it is strengthening 
itself with the doctrines of the ancient East and 
of old Egypt, which an indefatigable science is 
bringing again to light. Christian thought is 
growing, not by receiving any foreign impulse 
from without, but like a vigorous tree, whose 
roots traverse new layers of a fertile soil. All 
truth comes naturally to the centre of truth as 
to its rallying-point; and to the universal prayer 
must be gathered all the pure accents gone 
astray in the superstitious invocations which rise 
from the banks of the Ganges or from the burn- 
ing regions of Africa. The day will come, when 


32 LECTURE I. 


our planet, in its revolutions about the sun, shall 
receive on no point of its surface the rays of the 
orb of day, without sending back, over the ruins 
of idol-temples for ever overthrown, a song of 
thanksgiving to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and 
Jacob, become through Jesus Christ the God of 
all mankind. 

We know now whence comes our idea of God: 
it is Christian in its origin. It proceeds from this 
source, not only for those who call themselves 
Christians, but for all those who, in the bosom of 
modern society, believe sincerely and seriously in 
God. But little study and reflection is required 
for the acknowledgment that the doctrines of our 
deists are the product of a reason which has 
been evangelized without their own knowledge. 
They have not invented, but have received the 
thought, which constitutes the support of their 
life. A mind of ordinary cultivation is free 
henceforward from all danger of falling into 
the artless error of J. J. Rousseau, when he 
pretended that even though he had been born 
in a desert island and had never known a hu- 
man being, he would have been able to draw up 
the confession of faith of the Vzcazre Savoyard. 
The habit of historical research has dispelled 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. 33 


these illusions. A French writer, distinguished 
for solid erudition, wrote not long ago: “The 
civilized world has received from Judea the 
foundations of its faith. It has learned of it 
these two things which pagan antiquity never 
knew — holiness and charity; for all holiness is 
derived from belief in a personal, spiritual God, 
Creator of the universe; and all charity from the 
doctrine of human brotherhood!” * Religion, in 
its most general sense, is found wherever there 
are men; but distinct knowledge of the Heavenly 
Father is the fruit of that word which comes to 
us from the borders of the Jordan,—a word in 
which all the true elements of ancient wisdom 
are found to have mutually drawn together, and 
strengthened each other. In the very heart of 
our civilization, those men of mind who succeed 
in freeing themselves in good earnest from the 
influence of this word come, oftener than not, 
to throw off all belief in the real and true God, 
if they have strength of mind enough properly to 
understand themselves. 

How is it that the full idea of the Creator, — 
an idea which true philosophers have sought 
after in all periods of history, and of which they 


* Etudes Orientales, par Adolphe Franck, p. 427. 
3 


34 LECTURE I. 


have had, so to speak, glimpses and presenti- 
ments, —how is it that this idea is a living one 
only under the influence of the tradition which, 
proceeding originally from Abraham and Moses, 
has been continued by Jesus Christ? It 1s not 
impossible to point out the spiritual causes of this 
great historical phenomenon. Faith in God, in 
order to maintain itself in presence of the difficul- 
ties which rise in our minds, and—to come 
at once to the core of the question —the idea of 
the love of God, in order to maintain itself in 
presence of evil and of the power of evil on 
the earth, has need of resources which the Chris- 
tian belief alone possesses. The knowledge of 
the Heavenly Father is essentially connected 
with the Gospel: this is the historical fact. This 
fact is accounted for by the existence of an or- 
ganic bond between all the great Christian doc- 
trines: this is my deliberate conviction. I frankly 
declare here my own opinions: to do so is for 
me a matter almost of honor and good faith; 
but I declare them, without desiring to lay any 
stress upon them in these lectures. My present 
object is to consider the idea of God by itself. 
I isolate it for my own purposes from Christian 
truth taken as a whole, but without making the 


te 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. 35 


separation in my thoughts. The thesis which I 
propose to maintain is common to all Christians, 
that is quite clear; but further; in a perfectly 
general sense, and in a merely abstract point of 
view, it is a proposition maintained equally by the 
disciples of Mahomet; it is maintained by Wide 
Rousseau and the spiritualist philosophers who 
reproduce his thoughts. It is clear in fact that 
just as Jesus Christ is the corner-stone of all 
Christian doctrine, so God is the foundation com- 
mon to all religions. 

Before concluding this lecture I desire to an- 
swer a question which may have suggested itself 
to some amongst you. What are we about when 
we take up a Christian idea in order to defend 
it by reasoning? Are we occupied about re- 
ligion or philosophy ? Are we treading upon 
the ground of faith, or on the ground of reason? 
Are we in the domain of tradition, or in that of 
free inquiry? I have no great love, Gentlemen, 
for hedges and enclosures. I know very well, 
better, perhaps, than many amongst you, because 
I have longer reflected on the subject, what are 
the differences which separate studies specially 
religious, from philosophical inquiries. But 
when the question relates to God, to the uni- 


36 SADECTURE A. 


versal cause, we find ourselves at the common 
root of religion and. philosophy, and distinc- 
tions, which exist elsewhere, disappear. Be- 
sides, these distinctions are never so absolute 
as they are thought to be. You will understand 
this if you pay attention to these two considera- 
tions: there is no such thing as pure thought 
disengaged from every traditional element: there 
is no such thing as tradition received in a manner 
purely passive, and disengaged from all exercise 
of the reflective faculties. 

You think you are employed about philosophy 
when you shut yourself up in your own individual 
thoughts. A mistake! The most powerful ge- 
nius of modern times failed in this enterprise. 
Descartes conceived the project of forgetting all 
that he had known, and of producing a system of 


doctrine which should come forth from his brain | 


as Minerva sprang all armed from the brain of 
Jupiter. Now-a-days a mere schoolboy, if he 
has been well taught, ought to be able to prove 
that Descartes was mistaken, because the current 
of tradition entered his mind together with the 
words of the language. ft is not so easy as we 
may suppose to break the ties by which God has 
‘bound us all together in mutual dependence. 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. 37 


Man speaks, he only thinks by means of speech, 
and speech is a river which takes its rise in the 
very beginnings of history, and brings down to 
the existing generation the tribute of all the 
waters of the past. No one can isolate himself 
from the current, and place himself outside the 
intellectual society of his fellows. We have more 
light than we had on this subject, and the at- 
tempt of Descartes, which was of old the happy 
audacity of genius, could in our days be nothing 
but the foolish presumption of ignorance. 

As for the purely passive reception of tradition, 
this may be conceived when only unimportant le- 
gends are in question, or doctrines which occupy 
the mind only as matters of curiosity; but when 
life is at stake, and the interests of our whole ex- 
istence, the mind labors upon the ideas which it 
receives. Religion is only living in any soul 
when all the faculties have come into exercise : 
and faith, by its own proper nature, seeks to 
understand. The distinction between traditional 
data therefore and pure philosophy is far from 
being so real or so extensive as it is commonly 
thought to be. But for lack of time, I might 
undertake to prove to you more at length that 
the labor of individual thought upon the common 


38 LECTURE I. 


tradition is the absolute and permanent law of de- 
velopment for the human mind. 

We have to steer between two extreme and 
contrary pretensions. What shall we say to those 
theologians who deny all power to man’s reason, 
and consider the understanding as a receiver 
which does nothing but receive the liquid which 
is poured into it? to those theologians who, not 
content with despising Aristotle and Plato, think 
themselves obliged to vilify Socrates and calum- 
niate Regulus? We will tell them that they 
depart from the grand Christian tradition, of 
which they believe themselves par excellence the 
representatives. We will add that they outrage 
their Master by seeming to believe that in order 
to exalt Him it is necessary to calumniate hu- 
manity. Again, what shall we say to those 
philosophers, who do not wish for truth except 
when they have succeeded in educing it by them- 
selves? to those philosophers who draw a little 
circle about their own personal thought, and say: 
If truth discovers itself outside this circle we have 
no wish to see it; and who boast that they only 
are free, because they have abandoned the com- 
mon beliefs? We will tell them that they are 
deceiving themselves by taking for their own 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. 39 


personal thought the dédrzs of the tradition of the 
human race. We will add that their pretended 
independence is a veritable slavery. A strange 
sort of liberty that, which should forbid those 
who affect it to accept a faith which appeared to 
them to be true, because they were not the in- 
ventors of it. Listen to this wise reflection of a 
contemporary writer: “Philosophy allows us to 
range ourselves on the side of Platonism: why 
should it not also allow us to range ourselves 
on the side of the Christian faith, if there it is 
that we find wisdom and immutable truth? The 
choice ought to seem as free and as worthy of 
respect on the one side as on the other; and phi- 
losophy which claims liberty for itself, is least 
of all warranted in refusing it to others.”* To 
be free, is to look for truth wherever it may be 
found, and it is to obey truth wherever we meet 
with it. When the question therefore relates to 
God, or to the soul and its eternal destinies, — 
to the man who asks me, Are you occupied with 
religion or philosophy? I have only one answer 
to give: lama man, and I am seeking truth. 

A final consideration will perhaps put these 


* Barthélemy St. Hilaire, in the Séances et travaux del’ Acad- 
émie des sciences morales et politiques, LXX., p. 134. 


40 LECTURE I. 


thoughts in a more striking light. If you think 
the most important of the discussions of our day 
to be that between natural and revealed religion, 
between deism and the Gospel, you have not well 
discerned the signs of the times. The funda- 
mental discussion is now between men who 
believe in God, in the soul, and in truth, and 
men, who, denying truth, deny at the same time 
the soul and God. When these high problems 
are in question, periodicals and other publica- » 
tions, which have the widest circulation, and 
which gain admission into every household, bring 
us too often the works of writers without convic- 
tions, eager to spread amongst others the doubt 
which has devoured their own beliefs. They have 
received entire, and without losing an obole of it, 
the heritage of the Greek Sophists. They in- 
volve in fact in the same proscription Socrates 
and Jesus Christ, Paul of Tarsus and Plato of 
Athens: they have no more respect for the opin- 
ions of Descartes and Leibnitz than for those of 
Pascal and Bossuet. The great question of the 
day is to know whether our desire of truth is a 
chimeera; whether our effort to reach the divine 
world is a spring into the empty void. When 
the question relates to God, inasmuch as He is 


OUR IDEA OF GOD. 41 


the basis of reason no less than the object of 
faith, all the barriers which exist elsewhere dis- 
appear: to defend faith is to defend reason; to 
defend reason is to defend faith. The unbridled 
audacity of those who deny fundamental truths is 
bringing ancient adversaries, for a moment at 
least, to fight beneath the same flag. What they 
would rob us of, is not merely this or that article 
of a definite creed, but all faith whatever in Di- 
vine Providence, every hope which goes beyond 
the tomb, every look directed towards a world 
superior to our present destinies. But take cour- 
age. ‘This flame lighted on the earth, and which 
is evermore directed towards heaven, has passed 
safely through rougher storms than those which 
now threaten it; it has shone brightly in thicker 
darkness than that in which men are laboring so 
hard to enshroud it. It is not going to be ex- 
tinguished, be very sure, before the affected 
indifference of a few wits of our day, and the 
haughty disdain of a few contemporary jour- 
nalists. 

In a word, Gentlemen, —to take the idea of 
God as it has been handed down to us, and to 
study its relation to the reason, the heart, and the 
conscience of man, —this is my proposed method 


42 LECTURE I. 


of proceeding. 'To show you that this idea is 
truth, because it satisfies the conscience, the 
heart, and the reason —this is the object I have 
in view. Of this object I am sure you feel the 
importance : nevertheless, and that we may be 
more alive to it still, I propose to you to sound 
with me the abysses of sorrow and darkness 
which are involved in those terrible words — 
“without God in the world.” 


a re 


LECTURE _II. 


cere ree WITT OC Te GOL); 


(At Geneva, 20th Nov. 1863. — At Lausanne, 13th Jan. 1864.) 


GENTLEMEN, 

I propose to examine to-day what 
are the consequences for human life of the total 
suppression of the idea of God. ‘This suppres- 
sion is the result of atheism properly so called: 
it is also the result of scepticism raised into a 
system. The soul which doubts, but which 
seeks, regrets, hopes, is not wholly separated 
from God. It gives Him a large share in its 
life, inasmuch as the desire which it feels to meet 
with Him, and the sadness which it experiences | 
at not contemplating Him in a full light, become 
the principal facts of its existence. But doubt 
adopted as a doctrine realizes in its own way, 
equally with atheism properly so called, life 


44 LECTURE II. 


without God, the mournful subject of our pres- 
ent study. 

Having God, the spiritual life has a firm base 
and an invincible hope. The vapors of earth 
may indeed for a moment obscure the sky. One 
while fogs hang about the ground; another while 
clouds send forth the thunder-bolt; but, above the 
regions of darkness and of tempest, the eye of faith 
contemplates the eternal azure in its unchanging 
calm. Life has its sorrows for all; but it is not 
only endurable, it is blessed, when in view of the 
instability of all things, in view of evil, of injus- 
| tice, and of suffering, there can breathe from the 
| depths of the soul to the eternal, the Holy One, 
the Comforter, those words of patience in life and 
‘of joy in death: My God! Take God away, 
and life is decapitated. Even this comparison is 
not sufficient; life, rather, becomes like to a man 
‘who should have lost at once both his head and 
his heart. The immense subject which opens 
before us falls into an easy and natural division : 
we will fix our attention successively upon the 
individual and upon society. 


a 


* ES 


bh OS 0 ae 


THE INDIVIDUAL. 


MAn thinks, he feels, and he wills: these are the 
three great functions of the spiritual life. Let us 
inquire what, without God, would become, first, 
of thought, which is the instrument of all knowl- 
edge; next, of the conscience, which is the law 
of the will; then of the heart, which is the 
organ of the feelings. We will begin with 
thought. 

Let us go back to the origin of modern phi- 
losophy. The labors of Descartes will make us 
acquainted, under the form clearest for us, with 
a current of lofty thoughts which does honor to 
ancient civilization, and which has come down 
to us through the writings of Plato and St. Augus- 
tine. We have seen that Descartes deceived 
himself, when he thought to separate himself 
altogether from tradition, and forgot the while 
how intimately men’s minds are bound together 
in a common possession of truth. He was mis- 
taken, because he confounded the idea, natural 


46 LECTURE II. 


to the human mind, of an infinite reason, with 
the full idea of the Creator; so attributing to the 
efforts of his own philosophy that gift of truth 
which he had received from the Christian tradi- 
tion. But, having so far recognized his error, 
listen now to this great man, and judge if he 
were again mistaken in those thoughts of his 
which I am about to reproduce to you. 
Descartes strives hard to doubt of all things, 
persuaded that truth will resist his efforts, and 
come forth triumphant from the trial. He doubts 
of what he has heard in the schools: his masters 
may have led him into error. He doubts of the 
evidence of his senses: his senses deceive him in 
the visions of the night; what if he were always 
dreaming, and if his waking hours were but 
another sleep with other dreams! He will doubt 
even of the certainty of reason: what if the rea- 
son were a warped and broken instrument ? 
Reason is only worth what its cause may be 
worth. If man is the child of chance, his 
thoughts may be vain. If man is the creature 
of a wicked and cunning being, the light of 
reason may be only an zguzs fatuus kindled by 
a malicious and mocking spirit. Here is a soul 
plunged in the lowest abysses of doubt; but it is 


OC 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 47 


a manly soul which seeks in doubt a trial for 
truth, and not a comfortable pillow on which 
slothfully to repose. How does Descartes upraise 
himself? By a thought known to every one, 
and which was already found in St. Augustine: 
“ Cogito, ergo sum. I think, therefore I am.” 
Deceive me who will; if I am deceived, I exist. 
Here is a certainty protected from all assault: 
Iam. But what a poor certainty is this! What 
does it avail me to have rescued my existence 
from the abysses of universal doubt, if above the 
deep waters which have swallowed up all belief 
floats only this naked and mortifying truth: I 
am; but I exist only perhaps to be the sport of 
errors without end. The first step therefore 
taken by the philosopher would be a fruitless one | 
if it were not followed by a second. An eye is 
open, and says: I see; but it must have a war- 
rant that the light by which it sees is not a 
fantastic brightness. No, replies Descartes ; rea- 
son sees a true light; and this is how he proves 
it: I am, I know myself; that is certain. I 
know myself as a limited and imperfect being ; 
that again is certain. I conceive then infinity 
and perfection; that is not less certain; for I 
should not have the idea of a limit if I did not 


.) 


48 LECTURE II. 


conceive of infinity, and the word zmperfect 
would have no meaning for me, if I could 
not imagine perfection, of which imperfection is 
but the negation. Starting from this point, the 
philosopher proves by a series of reasonings that 
the conception of perfection by our minds demon- 
strates the real existence of that perfection: God 
is. He adds, that the existence of God is more 
certain than the most certain of all the theorems 
of geometry. You will observe, Gentlemen, that 
the man who speaks in this way is one of the 
greatest geometricians that ever lived. He has 
found God, he has found the light. Reason 


does not deceive, when it is faithful to its own 


laws: the senses do not deceive, when they are 
exercised according to the rules of the under- 
standing. Error is a malady; it is not the 
radical condition of our nature; it is not without 
limits and without remedy, for the final cause 
of our being is God, that is to say truth and 
goodness. 

From everlasting God was true, 

For ever good and just will be, 
says one of our old psalms. Faith in the vera- 
city of God—such is the ground of the assurance 
of believers; such is also the foundation on which 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 49 


has been raised the greatest of modern philoso 
phies. Without the knowledge of God and faith 
in his goodness, man remains plunged in irre- 
mediable doubt, possessing only this single, poor, 
and frightful certainty: I am; and I exist per- 
haps only to be eternally deceived. 

But, it has been said, and it needed no great 
cleverness to say it— What a strange way is this | 
of reasoning! Here is a man who first proves / 
that God is, by means of his reason; and then. 
proves that his reason is good because God is. 
His reason demonstrates God to him, and God: 
demonstrates his reason to him: it is an argu- 
ment of which any schoolboy can at once see the 
fallacy; it is manifestly a vicious circle. This 
has been said again and again by persons who 
have neglected a sufficiently simple consideration.. 
The error is apparently a gross one; is it not 
likely that the argument has been misunderstood? 
Ought we not to look very closely at it, before 
declaring that one of the most lucid minds that. 
have ever appeared in the world left at the basis 
of his doctrine a fault of logic which any school- | 
boy can discover? Self-sufficient levity of spirit 
is not the best means of penetrating the thought 
of leading minds; and it very often happens to 

4 


50 LECTURE II. 


us to fail of understanding because we have failed 
in respect. 

Let us examine with serious attention, not the 
very words of Descartes, as an historian might 
do, but the course of thought of which Descartes 
is one of the most illustrious representatives. 

To recognize in the reason traces of God, and 
to show that in faith in God consists-the only 
warrant of the reason, is not to argue in a vicious 
circle, because, in this way of proceeding, what 
we are employed in is not reasoning, but analy- 
sis; we are establishing a fact in order to ascer- 
tain what that fact implies and supposes. This 
fact is the natural faith which man has in his own 
reason, when his reason reveals to him the im- 
mediate light of evidence, or the mediate light of 
certainty. Now, when man confides in his rea- 
son, it is not in his individual reason that he 
confides, for he has no doubt that what is evident 
for him is ‘so also for others. If, tossed by 
a tempest, he were thrown upon an island of 
savages, he would not think that those savages, 
when they came to reflect, would be able to dis- 
cover that the axioms of our geometry are false, 
or to make elements of logic which would con- ~ 
tradict ourown. We believe in a general reason, 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 51 


everywhere and always the same, and in which 
the reason of each individual participates. We 
believe therefore that there is a principle of truth 
which exists in itself, a reason which is eternal 
and everywhere present; in other words, we be- 
lieve in God considered as the source of the 
universal intelligence. To believe in one’s rea- 
son, is to believe in God, in this sense: the fact 
of the confidence which we place in our own 
faculty of thought, supposes a concealed faith 
in eternal truth. This is the analysis of which 
I was speaking. It is a circle if you please, but 
it is a circle of light, outside of which there is, 
as we shall see by and by, nothing but darkness 
and hard contradictions. 

You deny the existence of God. On what 
ground do you rest this denial? On the ground 
of your reason. You believe then that your rea- 
son is good, you believe it very good, since you 
do not hesitate to trust it, while you undertake to 
prove false the fundamental instincts of human 
nature. But you would not venture to say that 
this reason which you believe in with a faith so 
firm is your own separate reason merely, your 
personal and exclusive property. You believe in 
the universal reason; you believe in God, con- 


sy LECTURE II. 


sidered at least as the source of the understanding. 
The man therefore who denies God, affirms Him 
in a certain sense at the same time that he denies 
‘Him. He denies Him in his words, in the exter- 
nal form of his thought; he affirms Him in reality, 
as the Supreme Intelligence, by the very trust 
which he places in his own thought. Our under- 
standing is only the reflected ray of the Divine 
verity. Therefore it is that Descartes, as soon as 
he has laid the first foundations of his system, in- 
terrupts the chain of his reasonings to trace these 
lines: “Here I think it highly meet to pause for 
a while in contemplation ef this all-perfect God, 
to ponder deliberately his marvellous attributes, to 
consider, admire, and adore the incomparable 
beauty of that immense light, at least so far as 
the strength of my mind, which remains in a 
manner dazzled by it, shall allow me to do so.”* 
Thus it is that while descending into the depths 
of the understanding, the philosopher who is 
supposed to be absorbed in pure abstractions, 
discovers all at once a sublime brightness, and 
exclaims with the ancient patriarch: “The Lorp 
is in this place, and I knew it not!”+ God is 
everywhere; He is in the heights of heaven, He 


* Meditation troisieme, at the end. + Gen. xxviii. 16. 


LIFE’ WITHOUT GOD. 53 


is in the depths of thought. Remember those 
celebrated words of Lord Chancellor Bacon: “A 
little knowledge inclineth the mind to atheism, 
but a further acquaintance therewith bringeth it 
back to religion.” 

God is not demonstrated, in the ordinary sense 
which we attach to the word demonstrate ;* He 
is pointed out} as the source of all light. The 
attempt to demonstrate God as anything else is 
demonstrated, by descending, that is, from higher 
principles until the object in view is arrived at— 
this attempt implies a contradiction. God is in 
fact the first principle, the foundation of all prin- 
ciples, the principle beyond which there is noth- 
ing. We may describe the process by which the 
human mind rises to this supreme idea; but to 
wish to demonstrate God by mounting higher 
than Himself in order to look for a point of depar- 
ture—this is literally to wish to light up the sun. 
If the sun of intelligences is extinguished, reason 
sets out on its way vaguely enlightened still with 
the remains of the light which it has reflected ; 
but it is not long ere it is stumbling in darkness. - 
Then it is that—be not deceived about it!—the 
doubts which Descartes called up by an act of 


* Démontrer. t ‘‘ On le montre.” 


54 LECTURE II. 


his own will do in good earnest invade the soul. 
We possess a natural certainty, which does not 
suppose a clear view of God; we reason without 
thinking distinctly of the principles on which we 
reason, just as, when we are in a hurry, we take 
the shortest cut without thinking of the axiom of 
geometry which prescribes the straight line. But 
if we pass from the natural order of our thoughts 
into the domain of science, if we ask — what is it 
which guarantees to me the value of my reason? 
then the question is put, and many perish in the 
passage which separates natural faith from the 
domain of science,—that dangerous passage 
where doubt spreads out its perfidious fogs and 
its deceitful marshes. The moment the question 
is started of the worth of reason, and all the 
schools of scepticism do start it, our answer must 
be— God; and we must find light in this answer, 
or see thought invaded in its totality by an irre- 
mediable doubt. ‘Then men come to ask them- 
selves if all be not a lie; and they speak of the 
universal vanity, without making the reserve of 
Ecclesiastes.* There are more souls ill of this 

* “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity....Let us hear the 
conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his com- 


mandments: for this is the whole duty of man.” (Eccles. i. 
and xii.) 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 55 


malady than are supposed to be so. Many begin 
by setting up proudly against God what they call 
the rights of reason, and by and by we see this 
reason, which has revolted against its Principle, 
vacillate, doubt of itself, and at last, losing itself 
in a bitter irony, wrap itself, with all beside, in 
the shroud of a universal scorn. 

Without God reason is extinguished. What, in 
like case, will happen to the conscience? ‘The 
conscience is a reality. I will say willingly in 
the style of the prophets: Let my tongue cleave 
to the roof of my mouth, ere I deny conscience, 
and disparage the sacred name of duty! Yes, 
conscience is a reality ; but God is in it: He it is 
who gives to it its necessary basis and its indis- 
pensable support. The conscience is the august 
voice of the Master of the universe. God has 
given us the light of the understanding that we 
may see and comprehend some portions of the 
works which He has created without us: a work 
there is for which He would have us to be fellow- 
workers with Him. The heaven of stars is a spec- ; 
tacle for the eyes of the body, a grander spectacle 
still for the contemplation of the mind which 
has understood their wondrous mechanism. We 
admire them; but if the stars failed to attract our 


56 LECTURE II. 


admiration, no one of them on that account would 
cease to trace its orbit. There is another heaven, 
a heaven of loving stars and free, the sight of 
~which is one day to fill us with rapture, and the 
realization of which is to be the work of our love 
and of our will. Before we contemplate it we 
must make it; this is our high and awful privilege. 
The plan of the spiritual heavens is deposited in 
the soul, and the utterances of the conscience re- 
veal it to the will. It is a law of justice and of 
love. This law is evermore violated, because it 
is proposed to liberty, and liberty rebels: it sub- 
sists evermore, because it is the work of the 
Almighty. Humanity, in its strange destiny, has 
never ceased to outrage the rule which it acknowl- 
edges, and to pronounce upon its own acts a 
ceaseless condemnation. The laws which are 
investigated by the physical sciences are the plan 
of the Creator realized in nature: the law pro- 
posed to liberty is the plan of the Creator to be 
realized by the community of minds. Such is 
the explanation of the conscience : God is its solid 
foundation. | 

Duty and God, morality and religion, are in- 
separable principles; all the efforts of a false 
philosophy have never succeeded, and never will 


—_— —-— a 


——— 


ee eee 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 57 


succeed, in disjoining them. Men will never be 
prevented from believing that God is holy, and 
that His will is binding upon them: they will 
never be prevented from believing that holiness ~ 
is divine, and that the will of God reveals itself in 
the admonitions of the conscience. ‘Therefore the 
progress of religion and the progress of morality 
are closely united; the morality of a people de- 
pends above all on the idea which it forms to 
itself of God. The conscience, in fact, at the 
same time that it is real and permanent in its 
bases, is variable in the degrees of its light. It is 
enlightened or obscured, according as the man’s 
religious conceptions are pure or corrupted ; and, 
on the other hand, when the religious worship is 
degraded beyond a certain limit by error and the 
passions, the conscience protests, and by its pro- 
test purifies the religious conceptions. It has 
often been said, that in the onward march of 
humanity, morality is separated from faith, and 
comes at last to rest upon its own bases. It isa 
notion of the eighteenth century, which, although 
its root has been cut, is still throwing out shoots | 
in our time. The attempt has been made to sup- 
port this theory by the great name of Socrates. 
It is affirmed that the sage of Athens, breaking 


58 LECTURE II. 


the bond which connects the earth with heaven, 
separated duty from its primitive source. Listen : 
Placed in the alternative of either renouncing his 
mission or dying, it is thus that Socrates addresses 
his judges: “Athenians, I honor you and I love 
you, but I will obey the Deity rather than you. 
My whole occupation is to persuade you, young 
and old, that before the care of the body and of 
riches, before every other care, is that of the soul 
and of its improvement. Know that this it is 
which the Deity prescribes to me, and I am per- 
suaded that there can be nothing more advanta- 
geous to the republic than my zeal to fulfil the 
behest of the Deity.” * Does the man who speaks 
in this way appear to you to have wished to break 
the link which connects morality with religion? 
He separates himself from the established reli- 
gion; he pursues with his biting raillery shameful 
objects of worship ; his conscience protests. But, 
while it protests, it attaches itself immediately to 
a higher and holier idea of that God, of whose 
perfections the sage of Athens had succeeded in 
obtaining a glimpse. 

God then is the explanation of the conscience : 
He is moreover its support. It has need in sooth 


* Apology. 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 59 


to be supported, —that voice which speaks within 
us; because it is unceasingly contradicted and 
denied. ‘The spectacle which the world presents 
is not an edifying one; the facts which are taking 
place on the earth are not all of a nature to main- 
tain the steadfastness of the moral feeling. Let 
us imagine an example, a striking example, such 
as it would be easy to find realized on a small 
scale in more commonplace events. A peaceable 
population, menaced in its most sacred rights, 
has taken up arms in the simplest and most legi- 
timate self-defence. Ido not allow my thoughts 
to rest upon the soldiers who are advancing to 
oppress it—mere instruments as they are in the 
hands of their leaders—but upon the leaders 
themselves. One of these, without the least 
necessity, with a calculating coolness, to which 
he sacrifices all the feelings of a man, or under 
the sway of one of those ferocious instincts which 
at times gain the mastery over the soul, gives up 
a town, a village, to all the horrors of slaughter, 
pillage, and fire. The blood of the victims will 
scarcely, perhaps, have grown cold, the last 
gleams of the fire will not yet be extinct, when 
this man shall be receiving the praises of his 
superiors. Men will laud the bravery and daring 


60 LECTURE II. 


of his exploit; his sovereign will place upon his 
breast a brilliant cross, the august sign of the 
world’s redemption; he will return to his country 
amidst the acclamations of the multitude, and 
drink in with delight the shouts of triumph which 
greet him as he moves on his way. For such 
things as these, is there to be no penalty but 
troublesome recollections which may sometimes 
be banished, and a few timid protests soon hushed 
by the loud voice of success? Verily there are 
perpetrated beneath the sun acts which cry aloud 
for vengeance. Have you never: felt it— that 
mighty cry —rising from your own bosom, at the 
sight of some odious crime, or on reading such 
and such a page of history? And it must be so; 
it must be that the cry for vengeance will rise, 
until the soul has learnt to transform imprecation 
into prayer, and the desire for justice into suppli- 
cation for the guilty. But if, in the presence of 
crime, we were forced to believe that there will 
never be either vengeance or pardon, the main- 
spring of the moral life would be broken, and 
humanity would at length exclaim, like Brutus in 
the plains of Philippi:—\“ Virtue! thou art but a 
name !” | 
The conscience is a reality; but its voice is 


SS ——— ee 


eee E be epee 


—T ee 7” 
es eae ee Ss 


a ee 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 61 


troublesome, and the captious arguments which 
go to deny its value find support in the evil ten- 
dencies of our nature. If it has no faith in eternal 
justice it runs the risk of being blunted by contact 
with the world. So doubt takes place, doubt still 
deeper and more agonizing than that which bears 
upon the processes of the understanding. ‘The 
questions which arise are such as these :—*“ This 
voice of duty — whence comes it? and what would 
it have? May not conscience be a prejudice, the 
result of education and of habit? It has little 
power, it seems, for it is braved with impunity. 
Many say that it is a factitious power from which 
one comes at last to deliver one’s self by resisting 
it. Am I not the dupe of an illusion? I am los- 
ing joys which others allow themselves. Barriers 
encompass me on every hand, for there are for 
me prohibited actions, unwholesome beauties, 
culpable feelings. Others are free, and make a 
larger use of life in all directions. What if I too 
made trial of liberty!” Here lies the temptation. 
When the soul aspires to become larger than con- 
science and more tolerant than duty, it is not far 
from a fall. The honest woman will be tempted 
to repine at the liberty of the courtesan, and ‘he 
man who is bound by his word will become capa- 


62 LECTURE II. 


ble of looking with envy on the liberty of the 
large Er hen come terrible experiences which teach 
-at length that the unbinding of the passions is the 
| hardest of slaveries, and that, in the struggle be- 
tween inclination and duty, it is liberty which 
oppresses and law which sets free. Happy then 
is he who, feeling himself to be sinking in gloomy 
waters, cries to that God who is able to rescue 
him from the abyss, and strengthens his shaken 
conscience by replacing it on its solid foundation. 
“God speaks and reigns. All rebellion is tran- 
sient in its nature; justice will at length be done. 
Justice may be slow in the eyes of the creature of 
a day, seeing that He who shall dispense it has 
eternity at his disposal.” But if God be not a 
refuge for us from men and from the world, if, 
when we see all that is passing around us, we 
cannot cast a look beyond and above the earth, 
men may lose their faith in duty. And this faith 
is lost in fact. If there are not dead consciences, 
there are consciences at any rate singularly sunk 
in sleep. There are men for whom goodness, 
truth, justice, honor, seem to be a coinage of 
which they make use because it is current, but 
without for themselves attaching to it any value. 
These pieces of money have no longer in their 


a - 
7 — a 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 63 


eyes any visible impression, because the concep- 
tion of the almighty and just God is the impression 
which determines duty and guarantees its value. 
When the necessary alliance of moral order 
with religious thought is denied, the reality of 
conscience is opposed to what are called theo- 
logical hypotheses always open to discussion. It 
is seen well enough that men may doubt of God, 
but it is supposed to be impossible to doubt of 
conscience. This is an illusion of generous 
minds. ‘Those who would keep this illusion must 
not open the pages of the history of philosophy 
where the negation of duty does not occupy less 
space than the negation of God; they must not 
cast their eyes too much about them; they must 
also take care not to open the most widely circu- 
lated books, and the most fashionable periodicals : 
otherwise, as we shall see, they would not be long 
in finding out that this morality which they would 
fain have superior to all attacks, is perhaps what 
of all things is most attacked now-a-days, and 
that that conscience which it is impossible to deny 
is in fact the object of denials the most audacious 
on the part of a few of the present favorites of 
fame. The voice of duty is heard no doubt even 


when God does not come distinctly into mind; | 


—— 


64 LECTURE Il. 


but when the questions are clearly put, if God is 
denied, conscience grows dim, and comes at last 
to be extinguished. This obscuration does not 
take place all at once: the potter’s wheel goes on 
turning for a while, says an old Hindoo poem, 
after that the foot of the artisan is withdrawn from 


it. But the darkening takes place gradually with 


time: such at least is the general rule. ‘There 
are exceptional men who seem to escape this law, 
and to bear in their bosom a God veiled from 
their own consciousness. Such men may be 
found, and even in considerable numbers, in a 
time like ours, when doubt is, in many'cases, a 
prejudice which current opinion deposits on the 
surface of minds without penetrating them deeply. 
There are men all whose convictions have fallen 
into ruins, while their conscience continues stand- 
ing like an isolated column, sole remaining wit- 
ness of a demolished building. The meeting 
with these heroes of virtue inspires a mingled 
feeling of astonishment and respect. They are 
verily miracles of that divine goodness of which 
they are unable to pronounce the name. If there 
is a man on earth who ought to fall on both knees 
and shed burning tears of gratitude, it is the man 
who believes himself an atheist, and who has re- 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 65 


ceived from Providence so keen a taste for what 
is noble and pure, so strong an aversion for evil, | 
that his sense of duty remains firm even when it 
has lost all its supports. But the exception does 
not make the rule; and that which is realized in 
the case of a few is not realized long, and for all. 
~ You know those crusts of snow which are formed 
over the crevasses of our glaciers. These slight 
bridges are able to bear one person who remains 
suspended over the abyss, but let several attempt 
to pass together,—the frail support gives way, 
and the rash adventurers fall together into the 
gulf. Such is the destiny of those schools of 
philosophy in which the notion of God disappears, 
and of those civilizations in which the sense of 
God is extinguished; they fall into dark regions 
where the light of goodness shines no longer. 
After the mind and conscience, it remains for 
us to speak of the heart. Man, an intelligent and 
free being, has in his reason an instrument of 
knowledge, and in his conscience a-rule for his | 
will. But man is not sufficient for himself, and yo 
cannot live upon his own resources. If you in- 
quire what the word heart expresses, in its most 
general acceptation, you will find that it always 
expresses a tendency of the soul to look, out of 
5 


66 LECTURE II. 


itself, in things or persons, for the support and 
nourishment of its individual life. Does the 
question concern the relations of man with his 
fellows? The heart is the organ of communica- 
tion of one soul with another, for receiving, or 
for giving, or for giving and receiving at the same 
time, in the enjoyment of the blessing of a mutual 
affection. The heart is in each of us what those 
marks are upon the scattered stones of a building 
in course of construction which indicate that they 
are to be united one to another. The philosopher 
suffices for himself, the stoics used to say; the 
heart is the negation of this haughty maxim. 
‘From the heart proceeds love, that son of abun- 
dance and of poverty, to speak with Plato, that 
needy one ever on the search for his lost heritage. 
Love has wings, said again the wisdom of the 
Greeks, wings which essay to carry him ever 
higher. Let us extricate the thought which is 
involved in these graceful figures: Our desires 
have no limits, and indefinite desires can be satis- 
fied only by meeting with an infinite Being who 
‘can be an inexhaustible source of happiness, an 
eternal object of love. “Our heart is made for 
love,” said Saint Augustine, the great Christian 
‘disciple of Plato: “therefore it is unquiet till it 


LIFE WITHOUT GoD. 67 


finds repose in God.” From this unrest proceed 
all our miseries. Men do not always succeed in 
contenting themselves with a petty prosaic happi- 
ness, a dull and paltry well-being, and in stifling 
the while the grand instincts of our nature. If 
then the heart lives, and fails of its due object; if | 
it does not meet with the supreme term of its re- 
pose, its indefinite aspirations attach themselves 
to objects which cannot satisfy them, and thence 
arise stupendous aberrations. With some, it is 
the pursuit of sensual gratifications ; they rush 
with a kind of fury into the passions of their lower 
nature. With others it is the ardent pursuit of 
riches, power, fame, —feelings which are always 
crying more: More! and never: Enough. And 
the after-taste from the fruitless search after hap- 
piness in the paths of ambition and vanity is not 
less bitter perhaps than the after-taste from sen- 
sual enjoyments. Listen to the confession of a 
man whose works, full as they are of beauties, are 
disfigured by so many impure allusions, that the 
author appears to have indulged, more than most 
others, in the giddy follies and culpable pleasures 
of life: 


If, tired of mocking dreams, my restless heart 
Returns to take its fill of waking joy, 


68 LECTURE II. 


Full soon I loathe the pleasures which impart 
No true delight, but kill me, while they cloy.* 
Here are the accents of a true confession. These 
are moreover truths of daily experience. 1 have 
seen —and which of you could not render similar 
testimony ?—I have seen the sick man, deprived 
of all the ordinary avocations and amusements of 
life, and with pain for his constant companion, I 
have seen him find joy in the thought of his God, 
and feeding, without satiety, on this bread of 
contentment. I have seen the face of the blind 
lighted up by a living faith, and radiant with a 
light of peace, for him sweeter and brighter than 
the rays of the sun. But where God is wanting, 
and all connection is broken with the source of 
joy, there you shall see the richest of the rich, 
the most prosperous among the ambitious, the 
man of fame whose renown is most widely ex- 
tended,—you shall see these men carrying the 
heavy burden of discontent. Their brow, unil- 
lumined by the celestial ray, is furrowed by the 
lines of sadness. If you meet them in a moment 
of candor, these rich, ambitious, and famous 


* Sj mon cceur, fatigué du réve qui l’obsede, 
A la réalité revient pour s’assouvir, 
Au fond des vains plaisirs que j’appelle & mon aide, 
Je trouve un tel dégoat que je me sens mourir. 


Se ee eee 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 69 


men will tell you with a sigh: “ All this does not 
satisfy; we are but pursuing chimeras.” Still 
they continue to run after these chimeras. They 
cry Vanity! Vanity! and they do not cease to |” 
pursue vanity. They flee from themselves: if 
they retired within themselves, they would find 
there ennui, inexorable ennui, which is but the 
sense of that place which God should fill left void 
in the depth of the soul. For the deceived heart, 
life becomes a bitter comedy. Those who do not 
succeed in blinding themselves by the dust of 
thoughtless folly, end oftentimes by wrapping 
themselves in disdain as with a cloak; they seek 
a sad and solitary satisfaction in the greatness of 
their contempt for life. But neither does this 
satisfy : disdain is not a beverage, and contempt 
is not food. 

Such are the destinies of the heart, to which 
God is wanting. But I hope, Gentlemen, that 
you have here some remonstrances to offer. I 
have just spoken of the pleasures of sense, of 
pride, of vanity, and I have made no allusion to 
those affections in which the heart manifests its 
highest qualities. Shall we forget the joys of 
pure love? the domestic hearth? friendship ? 
country ? Do not fear that, having given myself 


70 LECTURE II. 


up to a fit of misanthropy, | am come hither to 
blaspheme the true happinesses of life. But do 
the affections of earth offer us sufficient guaran- 
tees? We have need of the infinite to answer to 
the immensity of our desires; in the presence of 
those we love, have we no need of the Eternal 
that we may lean our hearts on Him? Will not 
all human love become a source of torment, if we 
have no faith in the love of Him who will stamp 
holy affections with the seal of His own eternity ? 
A single question will suffice to enlighten us on 
this head. Do you know the feeling of anxiety . 
We all know it, though in different degrees. 
Epidemical disease may appear. The cholera 
has started on its course; it has left the interior 
of Asia, and is approaching. The report is cur- 
rent that neighboring cities have begun to feel 
its ravages. Those we love—in a month, ina 
week, where will they be? War is declared. 
We hear of preparations for death ; the sovereigns 
of Europe apply themselves to calculations which 
seem to portend torrents of blood. If war breaks 
out, that brother, that son, who will have to take 
up arms, that daughter who will one day per- 
haps find herself at the mercy of an unbridled 
But let us not look for examples 


soldiery 


Ee 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 71 


so far away. Have you no dear one in a distant 
land of whom you are expecting tidings? And 
those who are near you! ‘To-morrow, to-day, 
now perhaps, while you are listening to me, a 


fatal malady is discovering its first symptoms 
Have you received the hard lessons of death? If 
you see children playing, full of ruddy and joy- 
ous health, does it happen to none of you to think 
of another child, once the joy of your fireside, 
now lying beneath the sod? Does it never hap- 
pen to you, by a sinister presentiment, to see 
features you love to gaze on convulsed with agony 
or pale in death? And yet you must either see 
the death of your beloved ones, or they must lay 
you in the earth; for every life ends with the 
tomb, and we do but walk over graves. When 
the soul has been thus wounded by anxiety, for 
this poisoned wound there is one remedy, but only 
one: “God reigns!” Nothing happens without 
the permission of His goodness. And of all those 
who are dear to us, we can say: “ Father, to Thy 
hands I commit them.” If we are without this 
trust, we shall only escape torment by levity. 
Without God our mind is sick; our conscience 
and our heart are sick also, and in a way more 
grievous still. 


PARE: 


SOCIETY. 


We have just studied what life without God would 
be for the individual. Let us now direct our 
attention to those collections of human beings 
which form societies. We shall not speak here 
of the relations of civil with ecclesiastical authori- 
ties, —a complex question, the solution of which 
must vary with times, places, and circumstances. 
Let us only remark that the distinction between 
the temporal and spiritual order of things is one 
of the foundations of modern civilization. This 
distinction is based upon those great words which, 
eighteen hundred years ago, separated the domain 
of God from the domain of Cesar. Religion 
considered as a function of civil life; dogma sup- 
ported by the word of a monarch or the vote of a 
body politic; the formula of that dogma imposed 
forcibly by a government on the lips of the gov- 
erned—these are débr7s of paganism which have 
been struggling for centuries against the restraints 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 73 


of Christian thought.* The religious convictions 
of individuals do not belong to the State ; religious 
sentiments are not amenable to human tribunals ; 
and it would be hard to say whether it is the 
spiritual or the temporal order of things which 
suffers most from the confusion of these distinct 
domains. Religion should have its own proper 
life, and its special representatives; civil life 
ought to be set free from all tyranny exercised in 
the name of dogma; but religion is not the less/ 
on that account, by the influence which it exerts, 
over the consciences of men, the necessary bond: 
and strength of human society. 


* Christian States have given the force of law to institu- 
tions, such, for instance, as monogamy, which date their 
origin from the Gospel records. Here we have the normal 
development of civilization: religious faith enlightens the 
general conscience, and reveals to it the true conditions of 
social progress. In this order of things, it is not a question 
of deliefs, but of acts imposed in the name of the interests of 
society. The state may take account of the religious beliefs 
of its subjects, and enter into such relations as may seem to it 
convenient with the ecclesiastical authorities: this is the basis 
of the system of concordats, a system which has nothing in it 
contrary to first principles, so long as liberty is maintained. 
But the establishment of zatzéonal religions, decreed by the 
temporal power and varying in different states, manifestly 
supposes a foundation of scepticism. For the idea of truth, 
one and universal in itself, is substituted the idea of decisions 
obligatory for those only who are under the jurisdiction of a 
definite political body. If the State, without pretending to 


\ 


\ 


; 
i 


' Plutarch, “than cause a State to subsist without 


74 LECTURE II. 


“You would sooner build a city in the air,” said 


_ religion.” Some have contested in modern times 
, this opinion of ancient wisdom. The philosophy 


) 


of the last century, as we have said already, 
wished to separate duty from the idea of God. 
It pretended to give as the only foundation for 
society a civil morality, the rules and sanction of 
which were to be found upon earth. The men of 
blood who for a short time governed France, gave 
once as the order of the day — Terror and all the 


‘ virtues: this was a terrible application of this 


theory. Virtue rested on a decree of political 


decree dogma, receives it from the hands of the Church, and 
imposes it upon its subjects, it seems at first that the temporal 
power has placed itself at the service of the Church, but that 
the idea of truth is preserved. But when the question is 
studied more closely, it is seen that this is not the case, and 
that the state usurps in fact, in this combination, the attributes 
of the spiritual power. In fact, before protecting ¢he true 
religion, it is necessary to ascertain which it is; and in order 
to ascertain the true religion, the political power must consti- 
tute itself judge of religious truth. So we come back, bya 
détour, to the conception of national religions. The Emperor 
of Russia and the Emperor of Austria will inquire respectively 
which is the only true religion, to the exclusive maintenance 
of which they are to consecrate their temporal power. To the 
same question they will give two different replies; and each 
nation will have its own form of worship, just as each nation 
has its own ruler. 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 75 


power, and, for want of the judgment of God, 
the guillotine was the sanction of its precepts. 
Healthier views begin now to prevail in the 
schools of philosophy. One of the members of 
the Justitut de France, M. Franck, has lately 
published a volume on the history of ancient civil- 
ization,* with the express intention of showing 
that the conception which a people has of God is 
the true root of its social organization. Accord- 
ing to the worth of the religious idea is that of 
the civil constitution. Before M. Franck, twenty 
years ago, a man of the very highest distinction 
as a public lecturer, indicated this movement of 
modern thought. M. Edgard Quinet, in his 
Lyons course, taught that the religious idea is the 
very substance of civilization, and the generating 
principle of political constitutions. He announced 
“a history of civilization by the monuments of 
human thought,” and added: “ Religion above all 
is the pillar of fire which goes before the nations 
in their march across the ages; it shall serve us 
as a guide.” Benjamin Constant exhibits in the 
variation of his opinions the transition from the 


* Etudes orientales, 1861. 

t Unité morale des feuples modernes, — a lecture delivered at 
Lyons, 10 April, 1839. This lecture is inserted after the Génie 
des Peligions in the complete works of the author. 


76 LECTURE It. 


stand-point of the last century to that of the pres- 
ent. He had at first conceived of his work upon 
religion as a monument raised to atheism, he ends 
by seeking in religious sentiments the condition 
necessary to the existence of civilized societies.* 
Here is a real progress; and this progress brings 
us back to the thought above quoted from Plu- 
tarch. In fact, take away the idea of God, and 
the first consequence will be that you will sacrifice 
all the conquests of modern civilization ; the next, 
that you will soon have rendered impossible the 
existence of any society whatever. I am going 
to ask your close attention to these two points 
successively. 

History does not offer to our view an uninter- 
rupted progress, as certain optimists suppose 5 
still less does it present the spectacle of an ever- 
increasing deterioration, as misanthropes aflirm ; 
and lastly, itis not true, as we hear it said some- 
times, that all epochs are alike, as good one as 
another. There are times better than those which 
follow them; and there are epochs less degraded 
than those which precede them. Human societies 
fall and rise again; their march exhibits windings 


* Franck, Philosophie du droit ecclésiastiqgue, pages 117 and 
118. 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. vr 


and retrograde steps, because that march is under 
the influence of created liberty ; but when their 
destinies are regarded at one view, it is clearly 
seen that they are advancing to a determined end, 
because while man is in restless agitation, God is 
leading him on. The conquests of modern civil- 
ization are great and: sacred realities. What are 
these conquests? Let us not stay at the surface 
of things, but go to the foundation. Societies 
fallen into a condition of barbarism have for their 
motto the famous saying of a Gallic chief: Woe 
to the vanquished! In institutions, as in man- 
ners, the triumph of force characterizes barbarous 
times. The right of the strongest is the twofold 
negation of justice and of love; and what charac- 
terizes civilization, issuing from the barbarous 
condition, the fragments of which it so long trails 
after it, 1s the establishment of that justice which 
founds States, and, upon the basis of justice, the 
development of the benevolence which renders 
communities happy. These are the two essential 
conditions of social progress. These conditions 
are necessary even to the progress of industry 
and of material welfare. 

Modern civilization, —that, namely, which we 
so designate, while we relegate, so to speak, into 


‘ s 
Vv 


78 LECTURE II. 


the past the contemporaneous societies of the vast 
\East, —modern civilization possesses a power un- 
‘known to antiquity. Justice has a foundation in 
the conscience, benevolence has natural roots in 
the heart; but a moment has been when justice 
and love appeared in the world with new bright- 
ness, like rays disengaged from clouds. Modern 
civilization was then deposited on the earth in a 
powerful germ, of which nothing was any more 
to arrest the growth. That moment was when 
the idea of God appeared in its fulness: modern 
civilization was born of the Gospel. ‘The knowl- 
edge of God strengthens justice, and the thought 


/of the common Father develops benevolence. 


These theses are well known; let us confine our- 
selves to a few rapid illustrations. 

There exists an institution in which has been 
embodied the negation of social justice — Slavery. 
Slavery is at length disappearing before our eyes 
from the bosom of Christendom; and its final 
retreat is doing honor to Russia, and bathing 
America in blood. This is perhaps the greatest 
of the events which the annals of history will in- 
scribe on the page of the nineteenth century. 
Now slavery was, in the past, an almost universal 
institution. The finest intellects of Greece de- 


é 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 79 


voted a portion of their labors to its justification. 
Rome, at the most brilliant period of its civiliza- 
tion, caused slaves to kill one another, in savage 
spectacles intended to delight the populace, or 
during sumptuous banquets for the amusement 


_- of wealthy debauchees!* How has slavery dis- 


appeared little by little! How has man been 
rediscovered beneath that living ¢héng of which 
was made, one while an instrument of labor, 
and another while the sport of execrable passions? 
Inquire into this history. You will find the reason 
and the heart making their protests heard in anti- 
quity, but without becoming efficacious. One 
day all is changed, and the foundations of slavery 
begin to shake. At that memorable epoch you 
will meet with a written document, the first in 
which is shown in its germ the great social fact 
which was about to have birth. It is not an 
emperor's decree, it is not the vote of a body poli- 
tic, it is a letter a few lines long written by a 
prisoner to one of his friends. The substance of 
this letter was: “I send thee back thy slave ; but 
in the name of God I beg of thee to receive him 
as thy brother ; think of the common Master who 


* Schmidt, Essaz historigue sur la Société civile dans le 
monde romain. Bk. I. ch. 3. 


So LECTURE II. 


is in heaven.” This letter was addressed —“ To 
Philemon ;” the name of the writer was Paul. It 
is the first charter of slave emancipation. Pon- 
der this fact, Gentlemen: contemplate the ancient 
institution of slavery shaken to its foundations, 
without being the object of any direct attack, by 
the breath of a new spirit. You will then under- 
stand how historians can tell us that the relations 
of states, belligerent rights, civil laws, political 
institutions, all these things of which the Gospel 
has never spoken, have been, and are being still, 
every day transformed by the slow action of the 
Gospel. God has appeared; justice is marching 
‘in His train. 
Justice is the foundation of society ; but without 
\ jthe spirit of love, justice remains crippled, and 
‘never reaches its perfection. Justice maintains 
the rights of each; love seeks to realize the com- 
munication of advantages among all. Justice 
overthrows the artificial barriers raised between 
men by force and guile; love softens natural ine- 
qualities and causes them to turn to the general 
good. Need I tell you that the knowledge of 
God is a light of which the brightest ray is love 
to men? Benevolence, that feeling natural to 
our hearts, is strengthened, extended, transfig- 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. SI 


ured, by becoming charity ;— charity, that union 
of the soul with the Heavenly Father, which 
descends again to earth in loving communion 
between all His children. The soul separated 
from God may be conscious of strong affections : 
but study well the character of a virtue which is 
nourished from purely human sources; you will 
see that it may for the most part be expressed in 
these terms —“To love one’s friends heartily, 
and to hate one’s enemies with a generous hatred ; 
to esteem the honest and to despise the vicious.” 
But that virtue which loves the vicious while it 
hates the vice, that virtue which will avenge 
itself only by overcoming evil with good, that 
virtue which, while it draws closer the bonds of 
private affections, makes a friend of every man, 
that virtue which we call divine, by a natural im- 
pulse of our heart—what is the source from 
which it flows? The following fact will suffici- 
ently answer the question. On the facade of one 
the hospitals of the Christian world, are read these 
Latin words, the brief energy of which our lan- 
guage cannot render: Deo in pauperibus, “'This 
edifice is consecrated to God in the person of the 
poor.” Here is the secret of charity: it discerns 


the Divine image deposited in every human soul. 
6 


* 


82 LECTURE II. 


But do not mistake here: we cannot love, with a 
love natural and direct, the rags of squalid pov- 
erty, the brands of vice, the languors and sores 
of sickness; but let God manifest Himself, and 
our eyes are opened. The beauty of souls breaks 
forth to our view beneath the wasting of the hag- 
gard frame, and from under the filth of vice. 
We love those immortal creatures fallen and de- 
graded; a sacred desire possesses us to restore 
them to their true destination. Has an artist dis- 
covered in a mass of rubbish, under vulgar appear- 
ances, a product of the marvellous chisel of the 
Greeks? He sets himself, with a zeal full of 
respect, to free the noble statue from the impuri- 
ties which defile it. Every soul of man is the 
work of art Divine, and every charitable heart is 
an artist who desires to labor at its restoration. 
Henceforward we can understand that love of suf- 
fering and of poverty, that passion for the galleys 
and the hospital, which have at times thrown 
Christians into extravagances which our age has 
no reason to dread. God in the poor man, God 
in the sick man, God in the vicious man and the 
criminal; this, I repeat, is the grand secret of 
charity. Charity passes from the heart of men 
and from individual practice into social customs 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 83 


and institutions. Charity it is which, by degrees, 
takes from law its needless rigors, and from 
justice its useless tortures; which substitutes the 
prison in which it is sought to reform the guilty 
for the galley, which completes the corruption of 
the criminal ; it is charity that opens public asy- 
lums for all forms of suffering ; and that will real- 
ize, up to the limits of what is possible, all the 
hopes of philanthropy. If God ceases to be 
present to the mind and conscience of men, justice 
and love lose their power. Without the powerful 
action of justice and of love, society would descend 
again, by the ways of corruption, towards the 
struggles of barbarism. Observe, study well, all 
that is going on around us. Does our civilization 
appear to you sufficiently solid to give you the 
idea that it can henceforth dispense with the 
foundations on which it has reposed hitherto? 
The sentiments of justice and of benevolence 
which form the double basis of the progress of 
society, suppose a more general sentiment which 
is their common support — the sentiment of hu- - 
manity. The idea that man has a value in him- 
self, that he is, in virtue of his quality as man, 
independently of the places which he inhabits 
and of the position which he occupies in the 


84 LECTURE II. 


world, an object of justice and of love ;—this 
idea includes in itself all the moral part of civili- 
zation. Social progress is only the recognition, 
ever more and more explicit, of the value of one 
soul, of the rights of one conscience. Now, the 
idea of humanity has the closest possible connec- 
tion with the knowledge of God, considered as 
the Father of the human race. Ancient wisdom, 
superior to the worship of idols, had gained a 
glimpse of the fact that the philosopher is a 
citizen of the universe; and that famous line of 
Terence: “I am a man, and I reckon, nothing 
human foreign to me,” excited, it is said, the 
applause of the Roman spectators. But these 
were mere gleams, extinguished soon by the gen- 
eral current of thought. It was the pale dawn of 
the idea of humanity. Whence came the day? 

I will limit the question by defining it. The 
idea of humanity is the idea of the worth and con- 
sequently of the rights of each individual man. 
It is the idea of liberty; not of liberty interpreted 
by passion and selfishness as the inauguration of 
the license which violates right, but of liberty inter- 
preted by reason and conscience as the limit 
which the action of each man encounters in the 
right of his neighbor. We are not speaking 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 85 


here of the equality of political rights, which is 
not always a guarantee of veritable liberty. We 
are speaking of a social condition such that man, 
in the exercise of his faculties, in the manifesta- 
tion of his thoughts, in his efforts for the causes 
which he loves, so long as he does not violate the 
rights of others, does not meet with an arbitrary 
power to arrest him. Still farther to limit our 
subject, we shall speak of the most important 
manifestation of that liberty —liberty of con- 
science, of which religious liberty is the most 
ordinary and most complete manifestation. This 
is only one of the points of the subject, but it is 
a point which in reality supposes and includes 
allthe rest. This liberty — whence does it come? 

It does not come from paganism. Paganism, 
with its national religions, could only produce 
fanaticism or doubt. Each people having its 
own particular religion, to exterminate the for- 
_ eigner was to serve the cause of the gods of the 
country. A war-cry descended from the Olym- 
pus of each several nation — that Olympus which. 
the gods quitted, in case of need, to take part in 
the quarrels of men. Did reason perceive the 
nothingness of these national divinities? Then 
scepticism appeared. The idea of the supreme 


86 LECTURE II. 


God being unsettled with all, and wholly obscured 
for the crowd, when men ceased to believe in the 
gods of the nation, they lost all belief whatsoever. 
For this cause doubt prevailed so widely at the 
decline of the ancient world. Those pantheons 
in which all religions were received, welcomed, 
protected, are the ever-memorable temples of 
scepticism. Now you know what voice made 
itself heard, when the ancient civilization was 
enfeebled by the spirit of doubt: “ Henceforth 
there is neither Greek nor barbarian, bond nor 
free. Ye are all brethren, and for all there is 
one God, and one truth:” here behold the root of 
scepticism severed. And the same voice added: 
“This only God is the lawful Owner of His crea- 
tures; and when you presume to do violence to 
the consciences which belong to Him, you know 
not by what spirit you are animated:” here be- 
hold the fountain of fanaticism dried up. God is 
acknowledged; He is the Master of souls: faith 
founds liberty.. 

The Witness to universal truth appears before 
Rome as represented by a deputy of Cesar. He 
is a fanatic, says the Roman; then he goes his 
way, and leaves Him to be put to death. But 
ere long, a dull hoarse murmur of the nations, 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 87 


extending through all the length and breadth of 
the mighty empire, gives token that He who was 
dead is alive again, and is speaking to the gen- 
eral conscience. Then Rome starts from her 
sleep ; Rome, the politic tolerant Rome, sheds 
rivers of blood. Her tolerance allowed men to 
believe everything, but on condition that they be- 
lieved seriously in nothing. Rome was directed 
by the sure instinct of despotism. She did not 
fear the gods of the Pantheon, because she could 
always place above them the statue of the Empe- 
ror: whereas what was now in question was, 
while leaving to Cesar the things which were 
Ceesar’s, to place a Sovereign above the Emperor, 
and to raise a legislation above the legislation of 
the empire. Therefore the Roman city deter- 
mined to give a death-blow to Christianity, — to 
the idea of universal truth, because if that idea 
gained entrance into the understanding, the cause 
of the liberty of souls was gained. So it was that 
indifference became ferocious, and that doubt led 
back to fanaticism. | 

I have told you whence liberty does not come ; 
but whence comes it? Whence comes liberty? 
Ask any scholar of the Lyceums of France; 
he will answer you, without hesitation: Liberty 


88 LECTURE “If. 


comes from the French revolution !— No doubt, 
whispers an older comrade in his ear; but do not 
forget the philosophy of the eighteenth century 
which developed the principles which the revolu- 
tion put in practice. — That is all very well, a 
Protestant will say ; but let us consider the grand 
fact of the Reformation: it is from the sixteenth 
century that liberty has its date.— Well and 
good, adds an historian; but do you not know 
that the Germans were they who poured a gen- 
erous and free blood into the impoverished blood 
of the men who had been fashioned by the slavery 
of the empire? I contest nothing, and I am not 
sufficiently well-informed to pronounce with confi- 
dence upon the action of all these historic causes.* 
But this I venture to affirm,—that if any one 
thinks to fix definitely the hour when liberty was 
born in history, he is mistaken : for it has no other 
date than that of the human conscience, and I will 
say with M. Lamartine: 

Give me the freedom which that hour had birth, 

With the free soul, when first in conscious worth 

The just man braved the stronger! * 
Liberty had birth the first time that, urged by his 
fellow men to, acts which wounded his conscience, 


* La liberté que j’aime est née avec notre 4me 
Le jour ow le plus juste a bravé le plus fort. 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 89 


a man, relying upon God, felt himself stronger | 
than the world. That Socrates had not studied, 
I fancy, in the school of the Encyclopedists, and 
was no German either, that I know of, who said 
to the judges of Athens, with death in prospect: 
“It is better to obey God than men.” And when 
those words were repeated by the Apostles of the 
universal truth, the death of Socrates, that noble 
death which has justly gained for him the ad- 
miration of the universe, was reproduced in 
thousands and thousands of instances. Children, 
women, young girls, old men, perished in tortures 
to attest the rights of conscience ; and the blood of 
martyrs, that seed of Christians, as a father of the 
Church called it,* was not less a seed of liberty. 
Liberty was not born in history; but if you wish 
to fix a date to its grandest outburst, you have it 
here; there is no other which can be compared 
with it. 

Some of you are thinking perhaps, without say- 
ing so, that I am maintaining a hard paradox. 
To look for the source of liberty of conscience in. 
religion, is not this to forget that the Christian 
Church has often marked its passage in history 
by a long track of blood rendered visible by the 


* Tertullian. 


go LECTURE II. 


funereal light of the stake? I forget nothing, 
Sirs, and I beg of you not to forget anything 
either. There are three remarks which I com- 
mend to your attention. 

It must not be forgotten that the Gospel first 
obtained extensive success when Roman society 
was in the lowest state of corruption, and that its 
representatives were but too much affected by the 
evils which it was their mission to combat. 

It must not be forgotten that there came after- 
wards hordes of barbarians who in a certain sense 
renovated the worn-out society, but who poured 
over the new leaven a coarse paste hard to pene- 
trate. 7 

It must not be forgotten, lastly, that if a cause 
might legitimately be condemned for the faults of 
its defenders, there are none, no, not a single 
one, which could remain erect before the tribunal 
which so should give judgment. Every cause 1n 
this world is more or less compromised by its rep- 
resentatives; but there are bad principles, which 
produce evil by their own development, and there 
are good principles which man abuses, but which 
by their very nature always end by raising a pro- 
test against the abuse. It is in the light of this 
indisputable truth that we are about to enter upon 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. OI 


a discussion of which ie will appreciate the full 
importance. 

Sceptical writers affirm rai toleration has its 
origin in the weakening of faith; and, drawing 
the consequence of their affirmation, they recom- 
mend the diffusion of the spirit of doubt as the 
best means of promoting liberty of conscience. 
We have here the old argument which would 
suppress the use to get rid of the abuse. Perse- 
cutions are made in the name of religion; let us 
get rid of faith, and we shall have peace. Prisons 
have been built and the stake has been set up in 
the name of God: let us get rid of God, and we 
shall have toleration. Observe well the bearing 
of this mode of argument. Let us get rid of fire, 
and we shall have no more conflagrations ; let us 
get rid of water, and no more people will be 
drowned. No doubt, — but humanity will perish 
of drought and of cold. 

Let us examine this subject seriously : it is well 
worth our while. If toleration proceeds from the 
enfeebling of religious belief, we ought among 
various nations to meet with toleration in an 
inverse proportion to the degree of their faith. 
This is a question then of history. Let us study 
facts. Recollecting first of all that ancient Rome 


Q2 LECTURE II. 


did not draw forth a germ of liberty from its scep- 
ticism, let us throw a glance over existing com- 
munities. 

Sweden is far behind England in regard to lib- 
erty of conscience. Is it that religious convic- 
tions are weaker in England than in Sweden? 
Has the religious liberty which Great Britain 
practises sprung from indifference? Is it not 
rather that that land produces an energetic race, 
and that it has been so often drenched with the 
blood of the followers of different forms of wor- 
ship, that that blood cried at length to heaven, 
and that the conscience of the people heard it? 
There is more religious liberty in France than in 
Spain. Is it the case that the true cause of the 
intolerance of the Spanish people is a more lively 
and more general faith than that of the French? 
That is not so certain. 

Switzerland is one of the countries in which is 
enjoyed the greatest liberty of opinion. Is Swit- 
zerland a land of indifference? Was not the 
comparative firmness of its citizens’ convictions 
remarked during the conflicts of the last century? 
Do not the United States bear in large characters 
upon their banner this inscription : LIBERTY OF 
CONSCIENCE? America is not distinguished as a 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 93 


country without religion; on the contrary, it is 

blamed for the excursiveness of its faith, for the 

multiplicity and sometimes for the extravagance of 
its sects. Was it a sceptic that taught the inhabi- 

tants of the New World to respect religious con- 

victions? Assuredly not! William Penn was 

shut up in the Tower of London for the crime of 
free thought. Set free from prison, he crossed the 

ocean. While intolerance was reigning still on 

both shores of the Atlantic, he founded in Penn- 

sylvania a place of refuge for all proscribed opin- 

ions; and the germ has been fruitful. In vain I 

pass from old Europe to young America; I look, 

I observe, and I do not see that liberty is devel- 

oped in proportion to the scepticism and the incre- 

dulity of nations. I seem, on the contrary, to see! 
that there is perhaps most liberty where there is 

most real faith. 

Some may dispute the validity of these conclu- 
sions by remarking that the condition of commu- 
nities is a complex phenomenon depending upon 
divers causes. Let us simplify the question. Is- 
it not, it will be said, the literary representatives 
of the spirit of doubt who have demanded and 
founded toleration? Is it not . . . But it is not 
necessary for my supposed questioner to go on. 


94 LECTURE II. 


If he is a Frenchman, he will name Voltaire. 
No doubt, freedom of opinion has been claimed 
by sceptics. They have served a_ good cause ; 
let us know how to rejoice in the fact, and not to 
be unmindful of what there may have been in 
their work of noble impulses and generous inspi- 
rations. Let us remark however that every pro- 
| scribed opinion puts forth a natural claim to the 
liberty of which it is deprived. But it is one 
' thing to claim for one’s-self a liberty one would 
gladly make use of to oppress others, and it is 
another thing to demand liberty seriously and for 
all. There was, as I am glad to believe, a cer- 
tain natural generosity in the motives which led 
Voltaire to consecrate to noble causes a pen so 
often sold to evil. Still it is impossible not to 
suspect that if that apostle of toleration had had a 
principality under his own sway, the fact of think- 
ing differently from the master would very soon 
have figured among the number of delinquencies. 

The patriarch of Ferney wrote in favor of tole- 
ration ; some friends of religious indifference have 
pleaded the cause of liberty of conscience: the 
fact is certain. But other writers, animated by a 
living faith, have also demanded liberty for all: 
the fact is not less certain. Some years ago, at 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 95 


nearly the same epoch, the Pére Lacordaire and 
our own Alexander Vinet consecrated to this 
noble cause, the former the attractive brilliancy 
of his eloquence, the latter all the fineness of his 
delicate analyses. The friends of Lacordaire are 
gathering up the vibrations of that striking utter- 


ance which proclaimed : “ Liberty slays not God.”* 


Let us gather up also the good words, which, 
uttered on the borders of our lake, have gained 
entrance far and near into many hearts. I should 
like to take such and such a Parisian journalist, 
bring him into our midst, and get him to acquaint 
himself thoroughly with the results of our experi- 
ence; I should like to conduct him to the ceme- 
tery of Clarens, place him by the tomb of Vinet, 
and tell him what that man was. —If, as he re- 
turned to his home, my journalist did not leave 
behind him at the French frontier, as contraband 
merchandise, all that he would have seen and 
learnt in our country, he would perhaps under- 
stand that the surest road by which to arrive at 
respect for the consciences of others is not indiffer- 
- ence, but firmness of faith, in humility of heart, — 
and largeness of thought. All the writers who 
have devoted their pen to the defence of the rights 
* Le Pere Lacordaire, by the Comte de Montalembert, p. 25. 


96 LECTURE II. 


of the human soul have not therefore been scep- 
tics. Without continuing this discussion of proper 
names, let us settle what is here the true place of 
writers. Before there are men who demand lib- 
erty and digest the theory of it, there must be 
other men who take it, and who suffer for having 
taken it. If liberty is consolidated with speech 
and pen, it is founded with tears and blood ; and 
the sceptical apostles of toleration conveniently 
usurp the place of the martyrs of conviction. 
“What we want,” rightly observes a revolution- 
ary writer, “is free men, rather than liberators of 
humanity.” * 

~ Jn fact, liberty comes to us above all from those 
who have suffered for it. Its living springs are 
in the spirit of faith, and not, as they teach us, in 
the spirit of indifference. It is easy to under- 
stand, that where no one believes, the liberty to 
believe would not be claimed by any one. 

Let us now endeavor to penetrate below facts, in 
order to bring back the discussion to sure princi- 
ples. Let us ask what, in regard to liberty of con- 
science, are the natural consequences of faith, 
and the natural consequences of scepticism. 


* De Tl’ autre rive, by Iscander (in Russian). Iscander is 
the pseudonyme of M. Herzen. 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 97 


Faith does appear, at first sight, a source of 
intolerance. The man who believes, reckons 
himself in possession of the right in regard to 
truth, and to God; he has nothing to respect in 
error. ‘T’hus it is that belief naturally engenders 
persecution. This reasoning is specious, all the 
more as it is supported by numerous and terrible 
examples; but let us look at things more closely. 
Place yourselves face to face with any one of 
your convictions, no matter which; I hope there 
is no one of you so unfortunate as not to have 
any. Suppose that it were desired to impose 
upon you by force even the conviction which 
you have. Suppose that an officer of police came 
to say to you, pronouncing at the same time the 
words which best expressed your own thoughts : 
“you are commanded so to believe.” What 
would happen? If you had never had a doubt 
of your faith, you would be tempted to doubt it, | 
the moment any human power presumed to im-_ 
pose it upon you. The feeling of oppression 
would produce in your conscience a strong in- | 
clination to revolt. Let us analyze this feeling. 
You feel that it is words, not convictions, which 
are imposed by force; you feel that declarations 
extorted by fear from lying lips are an outrage to 

7 


98 3 LECTURE II. 


truth. You feel, in a word, that your belief is 
the right of God over you, and not the right of 
your neighbor. Men respect God’s right over 
the souls of their fellow-men, in proportion as 
they are intelligent in their own faith. The fa- 
naticism which would impose words by force is 
not an ardent but a blind faith. In order to bring 
it back into the paths of liberty, it is enough to 
restore to it its sight. 

The establishment of the Christian religion fur- 
nishes a great example in support of our thesis. 
The Christians, when persecuted by the empire, 
had never allowed themselves to reply to the 
violencé of power by the violence’ of rebellion. 
There came, however, and soon enough, a time 
when they were sufficiently numerous to defend 
themselves, and had withal the consciousness of 
their strength; but they had no will to conquer 
the world, except by the arms of martyrdom, and 
heroism, and obedience. ‘This was not the case 
during a few years only, it is the history of three 
centuries, an ever-memorable page of human an- 
nals, in which all ages will be able to learn what 
are the true weapons of truth. Christendom, too 
often forgetful of its origin, has in later times 
allowed the fury of persecution to cloak itself 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 99 


under a pretended regard for sacred interests ; 
but the remedy has proceeded from the very evil. 
The Christian conscience has protested, in the 
name of the Gospel, against the crimes of which 
the Gospel was the pretext, and the passions of 
men the cause. “We must bewail the misery 


? 


and error of our time,” already St. Hilary was 
exclaiming, in the fourth century. “Men are 
thinking that God has need of the protection 
of men.... The Church is uttering threats of 
banishment and imprisonment, and desiring to 
compel belief by force, —the Church, which 
itself acquired strength in exile and in prisons!” 

True faith, then, possesses a principle by which 
it protests against abuses which it is sought to 
cloak under its name, and this protest comes at 
last to make itself heard. Faith suppressed, the 
passions will remain, for in order to be a saint, it 
is not enough to be a sceptic. The passions will 
look for other pretexts. Will not the spirit of 
doubt offer them such pretexts? 

It seems at first sight that doubt must promote 
toleration, since it does not allow any importance 
to be attached to opinions. This is a specious con- 
clusion, similar to that which placed in belief the 
source of intolerant passions. Let us once more 


IOO LECTURE II. 


reflect a little. The first effect of doubt is cer- 
tainly to dispose the mind to leave a free course 
to all opinions; but disdain is not the way to re- 
spect, and only respect can give solid bases to the 
spirit of liberty. Believers are in the eyes of the 
sceptic weak-minded persons, whom he treats at 
first with a gentle and patronizing compassion. 
But these weak minds grow obstinate ; the sceptic 
perceives that they do not bend before his superi- 
ority, and dare perhaps to consider themselves as 
his equals. Then irritation arises, and, beneath 
the velvet paw, one feels the piercing of the claw. 
"| The sceptic has in fact a dogma; he has but one, 
but one he has after all—the negation of truth. 
The faith of others is a protest against that single 
dogma on which he has concentrated all the 
powers of his conviction. He is passionately in 
earnest for this negation; he feels himself the rep- 
resentative of an idea, of which he must secure 
the triumph. Now come such surmisings as 
these: “ Here are men who think themselves the 
depositaries of truth! These pretended believers 
— may they not be hypocrites?” Place men so 
disposed in positions of power; let them be the 
masters of society ; what will follow? Beliefs are 
a cause of disturbances: what seemed at first an 


elt” 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. LOGE 


innocent weakness, takes then the character of 
a dangerous madness. For the politician, the 
temptation to extirpate this madness is not far off. 
“ What if we were to get rid of this troublesome 
source of agitation! If we declared that the con- 
science of individuals belongs to the sovereign, 
what repose we should have in the State! If we 
proclaimed the true modern dogma, namely, that 
there is no dogma ; if silencing, in short, fanatics 
who are behind their age, we decreed that every 
belief is a crime and every manifestation of faith 
a revolt, what quiet in society!” The incline is 
slippery, and what shall hold back the sceptic 
who is descending it? 

Faith carries with it the remedy for fanaticism, 
but where shall be found the remedy for the 
fanaticism of doubt? In the claims of God? God 
is but a word, or a worthless hypothesis. In 


_ respect for the convictions of others? —_All con- 


viction is but weakness and folly. All this, be 
well assured, gives much matter for reflection. 
When I hear some men who call themselves lib- 
eral, tracing the ideal of the society which they 
desire, the bare imagination of their triumph 
frightens me, for I can understand that that 


102 LECTURE II. 


society would enjoy the liberty of the .Roman 
empire, and the toleration of the Cesars. 

Such are the consequences of scepticism for 
the leaders of a people. What will those conse- 
quences be for the people themselves? The spirit 
_ of indifference paralyzes the sources of generous 
sentiments, and ends in the same results as the 
spirit of cowardice. And do you not know the 
part which cowardice has played in history? If 
I may venture to call up here the most mournful 
recollections of modern times, do you not know 
that during the Reign of Terror, two or three 
hundred scoundrels instituted public massacres in 
the Capital of France, in the midst of a popula- 
tion shuddering with fright, but who let things gor 
Now the characteristic of indifference is the letting 
things go. If fanaticism has something to do with 
persecution, indifference has a great deal to do 
with it. The crimes which minds paralyzed by 
doubt allow to be perpetrated have besides a sad- 
der character than those which are perpetrated 
by passions, which, wild and erring though they 
be, have a certain nobleness in their origin. If I 
must be bound to the stake, I had rather burn 
with the blind assent of a fanatical crowd, than in 
the presence of an indifferent populace who came 


’ 
LIFE WITHOUT GOD. I03 


to look on. For just as sceptics find all doctrines 
equally good, so they find all spectacles equally 
instructive and curious.* 

I have felt it necessary to insist on these con- 
siderations. Direct attacks upon religious truth 
are perhaps less dangerous than the efforts’ by 
which modern infidelity endeavors to estrange us 
from God, by persuading us that doubt is the 
guarantee of liberty, and that belief rivets the 
chains of bondage. Many consciences are dis- 
turbed by these affirmations. It concerns us 
therefore to know that God is the great Liberator 
of souls, and that forgetfulness of God is the road 
to slavery. The faith which seeks to propagate - 
itself by force inflicts upon itself the harshest of 
contradictions. The spirit of doubt, in order to 
become the spirit of violence, has only to trans- 
form itself according to the laws of its proper 
nature. 

And now to sum up. One of the noblest spec- 


* “The man of thought knows that the world only belongs 
to him as a subject of study, and, even if he could reform it, | 
perhaps he would find it so curious as it is that he would not 
have the courage to do so.” — Ernest Renan, preface to Etudes 
@ histoire religieuse, 1857. The author has manifested better 
sentiments in 1859, in the preface to his Hssazs de morale et de 
critique. 


104 LECTURE II. 


tacles that earth can show, is that of a community 
animated with a true and profound faith, in which 
each man, using his best efforts to communicate 
his convictions to his brethren, respects the while 
that which belongs to God in the inviolable asy- 
lum of the conscience of others. But woe to the 
society formed by sophists, in which: opinion, 
benumbed by doubt and indifference, arouses 
itself only to devote to hatred or to contempt 
every firm and noble conviction! 

To unsettle the idea of God, is to dry up at its 
source the stream of the veritable progress of 
modern society; it is to attack the foundations 
of liberty, justice, and love. The material con- 
quests of civilization would serve thenceforward 
only to hasten the decomposition of the social 
body. The pure idea of God is the true cause of 
the great progress of the modern era; religion, in 
its generality, is, as Plutarch has told us, the 
necessary condition to the very existence of so- 
ciety. This is what remains for us to proves 

“ How sacred is the society of citizens,” said 
Cicero, “when the immortal gods are interposed 
between them as judges and as witnesses.” * Let 
us raise still higher this lofty thought, and say: 


* De Legibus, ii. 7. 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. TO5 


“How sacred is human society, when, beneath 
the eye of the common Father, the inequalities of 
life are accepted with patience and softened by 
love; when the poor and the rich, as they meet 
together, remember that the Lord is the Maker 
of them both; when a hope of immortality allevi- 
ates present evils, and when the consciousness of 
a common dignity reduces to their true value the 
passing differences of life!” Take away from 
human society God as mediator, and the hopes 
founded in God as a source of consolation, and 
what would you have remaining? The struggle 
of the poor against the rich, the envy of the igno- 
rant directed against the man who has knowledge, 
the dullard’s low jealousy of superior intelligence, 
hatred of all superiority, and, by an almost inev- 
itable reaction, the obstinate defence of all abuses, 
—in one word, war —war admitting neither of 
remedy nor truce. Such is the most apparent 
danger which now threatens society. 

When I consider these facts with attention, I 
_am astonished every day that society subsists at 
all, that the burning lava of unruly passions does 
not oftener make large fissures in the social soil, 
and overflow in devastating torrents, bearing 
away at once palace and cottage, field and work- 


106 LECTURE II. 


shop. This standing danger is drawing anxious 
attention, and we hear the old adage repeated: 
“There must be a religion for the people.” There 
are men who wish to give the people a religion 
which they themselves do not possess, acting like 
a man who, at once poor and ostentatious, should 
give alms with counterfeit money. And what 
result do they attain? We must have a religion 
for the people, say the politicians, that they may 
secure the ends they have in view, and conduct 
at their own pleasure the herds at their dis- 
posal. We must have a religion for the people, 
say the rich, in order to keep peaceably their 
property and their incomes. We must have a 
religion for the people, say the savants, in order 
to remain quiet in their studies, or in their aca- 
demic chairs. What are they doing — these men 
without God, who wish to preserve a faith for the 
use of the people? These savants,—they say, 
and print it, that religion is an error necessary 
for the multitudes who are incapable of rising to 
philosophy. Where is it that they say it, and 
print it? Is it in drawing-rooms with closed 
doors? Is it within the walls of Universities, or 
in scientific publications which are out of the 
reach of the masses? No. They say it in polit- 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. 107 


ical journals, in reviews read by all the world; 
they print it at full in books which are sold by 
thousands of copies. Their words are spreading 
like a deleterious miasma through all classes of 
society. Thoughtless men! (I am unwilling to 
suppose a cool calculation on their part of money 
or of fame which should oblige me to say —heart- 
less men), thoughtless men! they do not see the 
inevitable consequences of their own proceeding. 
The people hear and understand. ‘The intel- 
lectual barriers between the different classes of 
society are gradually becoming lower: this is one 
of the clearest of the ways of Providence in our 
_time. Do you believe that the people will long 
consent to hear it said that they only live on errors, 
but that those errors are necessary for them? Do 
you not see that they are about to rise, and an- 
swer, in the sentiment of their own dignity, that 
they will no longer be deceived, and that they 
intend to deliver themselves also from supersti- 
tion? Then, all restraining barriers removed, 
passions will have free course; and believe me, 
the rising floods will not respect those quiet haunts 
of study in which they will have had one of their 
springs. The proof of this has been seen before. 
Some men of the last century wished to destroy 


108 LECTURE II: 


./ religion amongst decent folk, but not for the rab- 
ble: they are Voltaire’s words, who had too much 
good sense to be an atheist, but whose pale deism 
is sometimes scarcely distinguishable from the 
negation of God. “ Your Majesty,” thus he wrote 
to his friend the King of Prussia, in January, 
1757, \ will render an eternal service to the hu- 
man race, by destroying that infamous supersti- 
tion, I do not say amongst the rabble, which is 
not worthy to be enlightened, and to which all 
yokes are suitable, but amongst honest people.” 
A religion was necessary for the people; but 
Voltaire and the King of Prussia, the German 
barons, the French marquises, and the ladies who 
received their homage, could do without it. 

Voltaire died before eating of the fruit of his 
works; and Alfred de Musset could only address 
to him his vengeful apostrophe at his tomb: 


Sleep’st thou content, and does thy hideous smile 
Still flit, Voltaire, above thy fleshless bones? * 


‘Voltaire was dead; but many of his friends and 
‘disciples were able to meditate, in the prisons of 
‘the Terror and as they mounted the steps of the 


* Dors-tu content, Voltaire, et ton hideux sourire 
Voltige-t-il encor sur tes os décharnés? 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. IOQ 


scaffold, on the nature of the terrible game which 
they had played — and lost. 

So it fares with men of letters who have no God, 
but who would have a religion for the people. 
Other men there are who would have a religion 
for the people, being themselves the while without 
restraint, because they are without religious con- 
victions. They abandon themselves to the ardent 
pursuit of riches, excitements, worldly pleasures. 
These are they who have made a fortune by dis- 
graceful means, perhaps the public sale of their 
consciences, and who by their luxurious extrava- 
gance overwhelm the honest and economical 
working-man. These are the courtesans who 
parade in broad daylight the splendid rewards of 
their own infamy. Let not such deceive them- 
selves! The people see these things; they form 
their judgment of them, and if they give way to 
the bad instincts which are in us all, where God 
is not in the heart to restrain them, to their hatred 
is added contempt. If they are forcibly kept 
back from realizing their cherished hopes, they 
adjourn them, but without renouncing them. 

Put away all belief in God, and you will see 
the action and reaction of human passions form- 
ing, as it were, a mass of opposite electricities, 


PED LECTURE Il. 


and preparing the thunder-peal and the furies of 
the tempest. Then appear those disorganized 
societies which are terrified at their own dissolu- 
tion, until a strong man comes, and, taking advan- 
tage of this very terror, takes and chastises these 
societies, as one chastises an unruly child. It is 
a story at once old and new, because, in propor- 
tion as God withdraws from human society, in 
that same proportion the power of the sword re- 
places the empire of the conscience. ‘There must 
be a religion for the people! Yes, Sirs, but for 
that people, wide as humanity, which includes us 
all. 
If the existence of God is denied, man falls into 
despair, and society into dissolution. What then 
is my inference? ‘That atheism is false. Such 
a mode of arguing produces an outcry. “A mat- 
ter of sentiment!” men exclaim. “ You would 
build up a doctrine according to your own fancy ! 
You do not discuss the question calmly, but 
appeal to interests and prejudices: you quit the 
domain of science, which takes cognizance only 
of facts and reasoning.” Such expressions are 
common enough to make it worth while to study 
their value. Of course, science must not be an 
instrument of our caprice. We are bound to 


eee 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. LE 


search for truth; and we are unfaithful to our 
obligations if we try to establish doctrines which 
serve our passions,*® or favor our interests, or 
flatter our tastes and our prejudices. But the 
conscience, the heart, the conditions of the ex- 
istence of human society, are neither prejudices 
nor personal interests ; they are eternal and living 
realities. We ‘speak of the conscience, of the 
heart, of society, and they answer us: “ We do 
not believe that there are true sciences in that 
domain; we only wish for facts.” Occasionally 
we hear naturalists speak in this way. We only | 
wish for facts! Then our thoughts, our feelings, — 
our conscience are not facts! The man who will 
give the closest observation to the steps of a fly, 
or to a caterpillar’s method of crawling, has not 
a moment’s attention to give to the impulses of 
the heart, to the rules of duty, to the struggles 
of the will; and when addressed on the subject of 
these realities of the soul, the most certain of all 
realities, he will reply: “That is no business of 
mine, I want nothing but facts.” Let us pass - 
from this aberration, and listen for a moment to 
other objectors. 

We do not deny, it is often said, the reality of 
our feelings. Man desires happiness, and seeks 


BZ LECTURE II. 


it in religious belief; but this is an order of things 
which science cannot take account of. Science 
has only truth for its object, and owes its own 
existence wholly to the reason. If it happens 
to science to give pain to the heart or to the 
conscience, no conclusion can thence be drawn 
against the certainty of its results. “There is no 
commoner, and at the same time faultier, way of 
reasoning, than that of objecting to a philosophi- 
cal hypothesis the injury it may do to morals and 
to religion. When an opinion leads to absurdity, 
it is certainly false; but it is not certain that it is 
false because it entails dangerous consequences.” * 
So wrote the patriarch of modern sceptics, the 
Scotchman Hume. The lesson has been well 
learnt; it is repeated to us, without end, in the 
columns of the leading journals of France, and in 
the pages of the /tevue des deux Mondes. ‘The 
adversaries of spiritual beliefs have changed their 
tactics. In the last century, they replied to minds 
alarmed for the consequences of their work: 
“Truth can never do harm.”—“ Truth can 
never do harm,” retorted J. J. Rousseau: “I 


* Hume, Essay VIII. On liberty and necessity. [Not hay- 
ing access to the original, I re-translate the French transla- 
tion. — TR. | 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. IIl3 


believe it as you do, and this it 1s that proves 
to me that your doctrines. are not truth.” The 
argument is conclusive. So the adversary has 
taken up another position; and he says at this 
day : —“ Our doctrines do perhaps pain the heart, 
and wound the conscience, but this is no reason 
why they should be false : moral goodness, utility, 
happiness, are not signs by which we may know 
what is true.” 

Philosophy, Gentlemen, has always assumed 
to be the universal explanation of things, and you 
will agree that it is on her part a humiliating 
avowal, that she is enclosed, namely, in a circle 
of pure reason, and leaves out of view, as being 
unable to give any account of them, the great reali- 
ties which are called moral goodness and happi- 
ness. One might ask what are the bases of that 
science which disavows, without emotion, the 
most active powers of human nature. One might 
ask whether those who so speak, understand well 
the meaning of their own words ; and inquire also 
what is the method which they employ, and the » 
result at which they aim. One might ask whether 
these philosophers are not like astronomers who 
should say: “ Here are our calculations. It mat- 


ters nothing to us whether the stars in their 
8 


114 LECTURE II. 


observed course do or do not agree with them. 
Science is sovereign; it is amenable only to its 
own laws, and visible realities cannot be objec- 
tions in the way of its calculations.” Let us leave 
these preliminary remarks, and let us come to the 
core of the controversy. 

They set the reason on one side, the conscience 
and heart upon the other, as an anatomist sepa- 
rates the organic portions of a corpse, and they 
say: Truth belongs only to the reason; the con- 
science and the heart have no admission into 
science. Listen to the following express declara- 
tion of the weightiest, perhaps, of French con- 
temporary philosophers: “The God of the pure 
_ reason is the only true God; the God of the im- 
agination, the God of the feelings, the God of the 
conscience, are only idols!”* It is impossible to 
accept this arbitrary division of the divine attri- 
butes. There is but one and the same God, the 
Substance of truth, the inexhaustible Source of 
beauty, the supreme Law of the wills created to 
accomplish the designs of His mercy. The con- 
science, the heart, the reason rise equally towards 
Him, following the triple ray which descends 
from His eternity upon our transitory existence. 


* Vacherot, La metaphysique et la science. Preface, p. xxix. 


LIFE WITHOUT GOD. ESS 


We cannot therefore seriously admit that God of 
the pure reason, separated from the God of the 
conscience and of the heart. Still let us endeavor 
to make this concession, for argument’s sake, to 
our philosopher. Let us suppose that the reason 
has a God to itself, a God for the metaphysicians 
who is not the God of the vulgar. Before we 
immolate upon His altar the conscience and the 
heart, it is worth our while to examine whether 
the statue of the God of the reason rests upon a 
solid pedestal. Here are the theses which are 
proposed to us: “It is impossible for our feelings 
to supply any light for science. Truth may be 
gloomy, and despair may gain its cause. Virtue 
may be wrong, and immorality may be the true. 
Reason alone judges of that which is.” I an- 
swer : Human nature has always eagerly followed 
after happiness. Human nature has always ac- 
knowledged, even while violating it, a rule of 
duty. The heart is not an accident, the con- 
science is not a prejudice: they are, and by the 
same right as the reason, constituent elements of - 
our spiritual existence. If there exist an irrecon- 
cilable antagonism between science and life; if 
the heart, in its fundamental and universal aspi- 
rations, is the victim of an illusion, if the con- 


I16 LECTURE II. 


science in its clearest admonitions is only a 
teacher of error, what is our position? In what 
I am now saying, Gentlemen, I am not appealing 
to your feelings; the business is to follow, with 
calm attention, a piece of exact reasoning. If the 
heart deceives us, if the voice of duty leads us 
astray, the disorder is at the very core of our 
being; our nature is ill constructed. If our na- 
ture is 111 constructed, what warrants to us our 
reason? Nothing. What assures us that our 
axioms are good, and that our reasonings have 
any value? Nothing. The life of the soul can- 
not be arbitrarily cloven in twain; it must be held 
for good in all its constituent elements, or envel- 
oped wholly and entirely in the shades of doubt. 
If the heart and conscience deceive us, then rea- 
son may lead us astray, and the very idea of truth 
disappears. God is the light of the spiritual world. 
We prove His existence by showing that without 
Him all returns to darkness. This demonstration 
is as good as another. 


¥ 
j 


LECTURE III. 


POE MAE VIVAL (OF VAPTHET SA, 


(At Geneva, 24th Nov. 1863. — At Lausanne, 18th Jan. 1864.) 


GENTLEMEN, 

The subject of the present Lecture 
will be — The revival of Atheism. And I do not 
employ the word ‘atheism’—a term which has 
been so greatly abused — without mature reflec- 
tion. When Socrates opposed the idea of the 
holy God to the impure idols of paganism ; when 
he dethroned Jupiter and his train in order to 
celebrate “the supreme God, who made and who 
guides the world, who maintains the works of 
creation in the flower of youth, and in a vigor - 


always new,” * 


they accused Socrates of being an 
atheist. Descartes, the great geometrician who 
proclaimed the existence of God more certain than 


* Xenophon, Memorab. of Socrates, Bk. iv. 10. 


118 LECTURE IIl. 


any theorem of geometry, has been denounced 
as an atheist. When men began to forsake the 
temples of idols in order to worship the unknown 
God who had just manifested Himself to the 
world, the Christians were accused of atheism 
because they refused to bow down to wood and 
stone. Such abuses might dispose one to re- 
nounce the use of the word. Besides, when a 
word has been for a long time the signal of per- 
secution and the forerunner of death, one hesitates 
to employ it. In an’age when atheists were 
burned, generous minds would use their. best 
efforts to prove that men suspected of atheism 
had not denied God, because they would not have 
been understood had they attempted to say — 
“They have denied God perhaps, but that is no 
reason for killing them.” Thence arose the 
sophistical apologies for certain doctrines, apolo- 
gies made with a good intention, but which 
trouble the sincerity of history. ‘These are the 
brands of servitude, which must disappear where 


liberty prevails. We are able now to call things P 


by their proper names, for there exist no longer 
for atheism either stakes or prisons. In affirming 
that certain writers, some of whom are just now 
the favorites of fame, are shaking the foundations 


| 
! 
: 


P . -~ 
i a i es 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. IIg 


of all religion, one exposes no one to severities 
which have disappeared from our manners, one 
only exposes oneself to the being taxed with in- 
tolerance and fanaticism. But candor is here a 
duty. If this duty were not fulfilled, liberty of 
thought would no longer be anything else than 
liberty of negation; and, while truth was op- 
pressed, error alone would be set free. 

Let us settle clearly the terms of this discussion. 
It is often asserted that an atheist does not exist. 
Does this mean that the lips which deny God, 
- always in some way contradict themselves? Does 
it mean that every soul bears witness to God, 
perhaps unconsciously to itself, either by a secret 
hope, or by a secret dread? This is true, as I 
think ; but we are speaking here of doctrines and 
not of men. It is true again that the negation of 
the Creator allows of the existence, in certain 
philosophies, of generous ideas and elevated con- 
ceptions. Such men, while they put God out of 
existence, desire to keep the true, the beautiful, 
the good; they hope to preserve the rays, while 
they extinguish the luminous centre from which 
they proceed. Such systems always tend to pro- 
duce the deadly fruits pointed out in my last lec- 
ture; but men devoted to the severe labors of the 


I20 LECTURE III. 


intellect often escape, by a noble inconsistency, 
the natural results of their theories. Therefore, 
in the inquiry on which we are about to enter, the 
term ‘atheism’ implies, with regard to persons, 
neither reproach nor contempt. It simply indi- 
cates a doctrine, the doctrine which denies God. 
This denial takes place in two ways: It is affirmed 
that nature, that is to say matter, force devoid 
of intelligence and of will, is the sole origin of 
things; or, the reality is acknowledged of those 
marks which raise mind above nature, but it is 
affirmed that humanity is the highest point of the 
universe, and that above it there is nothing. Such 
are the two forms of atheism. 

Perhaps you expect here the explanation of a 
doctrine which is:often described as holding a sort 


of middle place between the negation and the. 


affirmation of God, namely, pantheism. Pan- 
theism, in the true sense of that word, is a system 
according to which God is all, and the universe 
nothing. ‘This extraordinary thesis is met with 
in India. A Greek, Parmenides, has vigorously 
sustained it. We have in it a kind of sublime 
infatuation. In presence of the one and eternal 
Being thought collapses in bewilderment; and 
thenceforward it experiences for all that is mani- 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. I21I 


fold and transitory a disdain which passes into 
negation. In the domain of experience, all is 
limited, temporary, imperfect; and reason seeks 
the perfect, the eternal, the infinite. The doctrine 
of creation alone explains how the universe sub- 
sists in presence of its first cause. In ignorance 
of this doctrine, some bold thinkers have cut the 
knot which they could not untie. They have 
declared that reason alone is right, and that expe- 
rience is wrong: the world does not exist, it is but 
an illusion of the mind. Whence proceeds this 
illusion? If perfection alone exists, how comes 
that imperfect mind to exist which deceives itself 
in believing in the reality of the world? To this 
question the system has no answer. Such is true 
pantheism; but it is not to dangers so noble that 
most minds run the risk of succumbing. What 
is commonly understood by pantheism is the dei- 
fication of the universe. The idea of God is not 
directly denied, but it undergoes a transformation 
which destroys it. God is no longer the eternal 
and Almighty Spirit, the Creator; but the uncon- 
scious principle, the substance of things, the 
whole. The universe alone exists; above it there 
is nothing; but the universe is infinite, eternal, 
divine. The higher wants of the reason, mingling 


I22 LECTURE III. 


with the data derived from experience, form an 
imposing and confused image, which, while it 
beguiles the imagination, perverts the understand- 
ing, deceives the heart, and places the conscience 
in peril. Ina philosophical point of view, it is a 
contradiction of thought, which seeks the Infinite 
Being, and, being unable to discover Him, gives 
the character of infinity to realities bounded by 
experience. In a religious point of view, it is an 
aberration of the heart, which preserves the senti- 
ment of adoration, but perverts it by dispersing it 
over the universe. “Pantheism,” says M. Jules 
Simon, “is only the learned form of atheism ; the 
universe deified is a universe without God.” * 
From the moment that the reason endeavors to 
see distinctly, pantheism vanishes like a deceitful 
glare. Atheism disengages itself from the cloak 
which was concealing its true nature, and the 
mind remains in presence of nature only, or of 
humanity only. We will proceed to take a rapid 
glance at some few of the countries of Europe, in 
order to discover and point out in them the traces 
of this melancholy doctrine. Let us begin with 
France. | 

In the year 1844, just twenty years ago, some 


* La Religion naturelle. Preface. 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. I23 


French writers, representing the philosophy, in 
some measure official, of the time, united to pub- 
lish a Dvectionnaire des sciences philosophiques. 
M. Franck, the director of this useful and labori- 
ous enterprise, said in the preface to the work: 
“Atheism has well nigh completely disappeared 
from philosophy ; the progress of a sound psychol- 
ogy will render its return for ever impossible.” 
In speaking thus, he expressed the thoughts and 
hopes of the school of which he remains one of 
the most estimable representatives. A generous 
impulse was animating a group of intelligent and 
learned young men. Their hope was to translate 
Christianity into a purely rational doctrine, to 
purify religious notions without destroying them, 
and, while endowing humanity with a vigorous 
scientific culture, to leave to it its lofty hopes. 
The object in view was to establish a philosophy 
founded upon a serious faith in God; and to this 
philosophy was promised the progressive and 
pacific conquest of the human race.* Twenty 
years have passed, and things bear quite another © 
aspect. To language expressive of security have 
succeeded the accents of anxiety and words of 


* Emile Saisset, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, of March, 
1845. 


124 LECTURE III. 


alarm. The cause which was proclaimed victo- 
rious is defended at this day like a besieged city. 
You will remark however, —that I may not leave 
you beyond measure discouraged by the facts of 
which I have to tell you,—you will remark, I 
say, that it is the efforts attempted in the cause of 
good which have helped to set me on the track 
of evil; it has often been the defence which has 
fixed my attention upon the attack. 

The materialism of the last century seems to 
have maintained a strong hold upon one part of | 
the Paris school of medicine. We do find in 
France a good many physicians who, like Boer- 
have, render homage to religion, and a good 
many physiologists who, ljke the great Haller, 
are ready to defend beliefs of the spiritual order ; * 
but, among men specially devoted to the study of 
matter, many succumb to the temptation of refus- 
ing to recognize anything as real which does not 
come under the experience of the senses. This 
however is not one of the points which offer them- 
selves most strikingly for our examination. The 
atheistic manifestations of the socialist schools 
have more novelty, and perhaps more importance. 


* See the Lettres sur les vérités, les plus importantes de la 
révélation, by Albert de Haller, translated into French at one 
of his Sep a Lausanne, Bridel, 1846. 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. 125 


Man is naturally a social being. Good and 
evil have their primitive seat in the heart of indi- 
viduals, but good and evil are transferred into 
institutions of which the influence is morally 
beneficial or pernicious. If socialism consists in 
recognizing the importance of social institutions, 
in cherishing ideas of progress and hopes of 
reform, I trust that we are all socialists. Do we 
desire progress by the ever wider diffusion of 
justice and love? From the moment that, across 
the conscience whereon divine rays are falling, 
we have descried the eternal centre of light, we 
understand that God is the most implacable enemy 
of abuses. How is it then that atheism sometimes 
manifests itself in attempts at social reform? We 
may explain it, without so much as pointing out 
the influence, but too real, of the faults committed 
by the representatives of religion. Faith is a 
principle of action; it is, as history testifies, the 
grand source of the progress of human society ; 
but faith is also a principle of patience. The 
brow of every believer is more or less illumined 
by the rays of His peace who is patient because 
He is eternal. Eager to effect good to the utmost 
extent of his ability, he accomplishes his work 
with that calm activity to which are reserved 


126 LECTURE III. 


durable victories. In the impossible (for if the 
word impossible is not French, it is human) 
the believer recognizes one of the manifestations 
of the supreme Will, and immortal hope enables 
him to support the evils which he does not succeed 
in destroying. But this is not enough for impa- 
tient reformers. Ignorant of the profound sources 
of evil, they think that institutions can do every- 
thing, and that a change of laws would suffice to 
reform men’s hearts; they believe that the organ- 
ization of society alone hinders the realization of 
good and of happiness. The resignation of be- 
lievers appears to them a stupid lethargy, and in 
their patient expectation of a judgment to come 
they see only an obstacle to the immediate triumph 
of justice on the earth. What if the nations were 
persuaded that there is nothing to be looked for 
beyond the present life, so that all that is to be 
done is to make to ourselves a paradise as soon 
as may be here below! If they were persuaded 
that all appeal to the Judge in heaven is a chi- 
merical hope, with what ardor would they throw 
themselves into schemes of revolution! Thus it 
is that certain political innovators are led to seek 
in the negation of God one of their means of 
action. 


lag 5 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. 127 


Two views, therefore, essentially diverse, gov- 
ern the labors of the renovators of society. The 
one class desire to realize, in an ever larger 
measure, justice and love; religious convictions 
are the strongest support of their work. The 
other class would uproot from men’s minds every 
principle of faith, in order the more readily to 
obtain the realization of their theories. “These 
two classes of men seem at times to be fighting all 
together in the mé/ée of opinions. They meet, 
as, in the doubtful glimmer of the dawn, might 
meet together laborious workmen who are antici- 
pating the daylight, and evil-doers who are fleeing 
from the sun. 

In order to. form a just estimate of the labors of 
the socialist schools, it would be necessary to 
make a bold and straightforward inquiry into the 
object of their studies, and to discern, in the midst 
of mad-brained and guilty dreams, whatever 
flashes of light might disclose some prophetic 
vision of the future. This is no task of ours. It 
is enough for us to remark that in France, as also 
in the other countries of Europe, the negation of 
God discovers itself in this order of ideas. It 
discovers itself at one time by an idolatry of 
humanity, at another by a materialistic enthusiasm 


128 LECTURE III. 


for corporeal indulgences. Disregarding the sens- 
ual. imaginations which disgrace the works of 
Fourrier, let us turn our attention elsewhere. 

M. Vacherot, a sober philosopher, of high in- 
tellectual power and elevated sentiment, has lately 
published, unhappily, twelve hundred pages des- 
tined to maintain the thesis that God does not 
exist.* Man conceives the idea of perfection, 
and not finding that perfection realized either in 
the world or in himself, he rises to the conception 
of a real and perfect being: such is the usual 
process of metaphysical reasoning. , For M. 
_ Vacherot, reality and perfection mutually exclude 
one another ; this is one of his fundamental theses. 
This thesis does but interpret the result of our 
experience, by refusing us the right to raise our- 
selves higher. The world with which we are 
acquainted is imperfect; therefore—say Plato, 
Saint Augustine, and Descartes —the perfection 
of which we have the idea is realized in a Being 
superior to the world. The world with which we 
are acquainted is imperfect, therefore there is a 
contradiction between the ideal and the real, says 
M. Vacherot, who makes thus of the general 
result of experience the absolute rule of truth. 


* La Meétaphysique et la Scéence,2tom. Oct. 1858. 


ss 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. I29 


To say therefore of God that He is perfect, is to 
afrm that He does not exist, inasmuch as the 
ideal is never realized. ‘Thought thus finds itself 
placed in a situation at once odd and violent. If 
God is perfect, He does not exist. If God exists, 
He is not perfect. The respect which we owe to 
the Being of beings forbids us to believe in Him; 
to affirm His existence would be to do outrage to 
His perfection. The author of this theory renders 
a worship to that ideal which does not exist, and 
towards which he affirms nevertheless that the 
world is gravitating by the law of progress. This 
worship is of too abstract a nature to secure many 
adherents ; it can only become popular by taking 
another shape, and it does so in this way: We 
conceive of that perfection which in itself does not 
exist; it exists therefore in our thought. Since 
the world, by the law of progress, is tending 
towards perfection, the world has for its end and 
law a thought of the human mind. The human 
mind therefore is the summit of the universe, and 
it is it that we must adore. We are here out of 
the region of pure abstraction, and arrive at the 
doctrines of the Positivist school. 

The Positive philosophy, so called. because it 
wishes to have done with chimeras, was founded 

9 


130 LECTURE III. 


in France, a few years ago, by Auguste Comte. 
M. Littré is at present one of its principal repre- 
sentatives. This writer, says M. Sainte-Beuve, 
is one of those who are endeavoring “to set 
humanity free from illusions, from vague disputes, 
from vain solutions, from deceitful idols and 
powers.” * Let us say the same thing in simpler 
terms: M. Littré professes the doctrines of a 
school which ignores the Creator in nature, and 
Providence in history. To ascertain phenomena, 
and acquaint ourselves with the law which govy- 
erns them, such, say the positivists, is the limit of 
-all our knowledge. As for the origin of things 
and their destination, that is an affair of individual 
fancy. “Each one may be allowed to represent 
such matters to himself as he likes; there is noth- 
ing to hinder the man who finds a pleasure in 
doing so from dreaming upon that past and that 
Pane 7 


“In spite of some appearances to the contrary,” 


says M. Littré, “the positive philosophy does not 
accept atheism.” | Why? Because atheism pre- 
tends to give an explanation of the universe, and 


* Notice sur M. Littré, page 57. 
+ Paroles de philosophie positive, page 33. 
t Idem, page 30. 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. DEE 


that after a fashion is still theology. Minds 
“veritably emancipated” profess to know nothing 
whatever on questions which go beyond actual 
experience. They do not deny God, they elimi- 
nate Him from the thoughts. The attempt is a 
bold one, but it fails; men do not succeed in 
emancipating themselves from the laws of reason. 
The very writer whom I have just quoted is him- 
self a proof of this, for he absolutely proscribes 
every statement of a metaphysical nature, and 
then, three pages farther on, in the very treatise 
in which he makes this proscription, he speaks of 
the “eternal motive powers of a boundless uni- 
verse.” * Boundless! eternal! What thoughts 
are these? Behold the instincts of the reason 
coming to light! behold all the divine attributes 
appearing! Adoration is withdrawn from God, 
and it is given to the universe at large. What is 
it which, in the universe regarded as a whole, 
will become the direct object of worship? Another 
positivist, M. de Lombrail, will tell us, in a work 
reviewed by Auguste Comte: “Man,” he says, 
“has always adored humanity.” Here, we learn, 
is the true foundation of all religions, and the 
brief summary of their history. This humanity- 


* Paroles de philosophic positive, page 34. 


132 LECTURE III. 


god has been long adored under a veil which 
disguised it from the eyes of its worshippers ; but 
the time is come when the sage ought to recog- 
nize the object of his worship and give it its true 
name.* . 

The positivist school, then, professes a complete 
scepticism with regard to whatever is not included 
in the domain of experience. But its foot slips, 
and it falls into the negation of God, from which 
it rises again by means of a humanitarian atheism. 
All these marks are met with again in the works 
of the critical school. 

The critics group themselves about M. Renan. 
The praises which they lavished a while ago on 
a bad book by that author seem at least to allow 
us to point him out as their chief. They derive 
their name from studies in history and archeology, 
with which we here have nothing to do. They 
are regarded as forming a philosophical and reli- 
gious school, and it is in that connection that they 
claim our attention. Their influence is incon- 


* Apercus généraux sur la doctrine positiviste, par M. de 
Lombrail, ancien éléve de l’ école polytechnique. The author 
says in his preface: ‘‘ Auguste Comte examined this work 
with the conscientious attention which he was accustomed to 
give to the simplest task. He desired by his useful counsels 
to render it worthy of publication.” 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. 133 


testable, and still, notwithstanding, their doctrinal 
value is nothing. They form merely a literary 
branch of the positivist school engrafted upon 
the electicism of M. Cousin. We find in their 
writings the pretension to limit science to the ex- 
perimental study of nature and to humanity. We 
afterwards find there the pretension to understand 
and to accept all doctrines alike. Beyond this, 
nothing. The critics bestow particular attention 
on the phenomena of religion, of art, and of 
philosophy ; but this interest is purely historical. 
Nothing is more curious than the successive forms 
of human beliefs ; but the period of beliefs is over. 
Religious faith no longer subsists except in minds 
which are behind the age; and philosophy, up- 
held in a final swoon by Hegel and Hamilton, 
has just yielded its last breath in the arms of M. 
Cousin: so M. Renan informs us.* ‘To choose 
a side between the defenders of the idea of God 
and its opponents; to choose between Plato and 
Epicurus, between Origen and Celsus, between 
Descartes and Hobbes, between Leibnitz and 
Spinoza, would be to make one’s self the Don 
Quixote of thought. An honest man may find 
amusement in reading the Amadis of Gaul; the 
* Revue des Deux Mondes, of 15th Jan. 1860, page 367. 


134 LECTURE III. 


Knight of /a Manche went mad through putting 
faith in the adventures of that hero. A like fate 
befalls those minds which are simple enough to 
believe still, in the midst of the nineteenth century, 
in the brave chimeras of former days. Let us 
study history, let us study nature ; beyond that we 
do not know, and we never shall know, anything. 
Our fashionable men of letters develop their thesis 
with so much assurance; they lavish upon be- 
lievers so many expressions of amiable disdain ; 
they appear so sure of being the interpreters of 
the mind of the age, that they seem ready to 
" repeat to young people dazzled by their success, 
the lesson which Gilbert had expressed in these 
terms: 


Between ourselves — you own a God, I fear! 

Beware lest in your verse the fact appear: 

Dread the wits’ laughter, friend, and know your betters: 
Our grandsires might have worn those old-world fetters ; 
But in our days! Come, you must learn respect, — 
Content your age to follow, not direct.* 


* Je soupconne entre nous que vous croyez en Dieu. 
N’ allez pas dans vos vers en consigner Il’aveu; 
Craignez le ridicule, et respectez vos maitres. 
Croire en Dieu fut un tort permis & nos ancétres. 
Mais dans notre age! Allons, il faut vous corriger 
£t suivre votre siecle, au lieu de le juger. 


4 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. 135 


To believe in God would be vulgar; to deny 
the existence of God would be a want of taste ; the 
divine world must remain as a subject for poetry. 
So our critics speak. Their direct affirmation is 
scepticism. But they follow the destinies of the 
positivist school ; they do not succeed in maintain- 
ing their balance between the affirmation and 
negation of God. Alfred de Musset has described 
this position of the soul, and its inevitable issue. 
Must I hope in God? Must I reject all faith and 
all hope? 


Between these paths how difficult the choice! 

Ah! might I find some smoother, easier way. 
‘¢None such exists,” whispers a secret voice, 

** God zs, or 7s not — own, or slight, His sway.” 
In sooth, I think so: troubled souls in turn 

By each extreme are tossed and harassed sore: 
They are but atheists, who feel no concern; 

If once they doubted they would sleep no more.* 


The indifference of the critical philosophers is 
in fact only a transparent veil to atheistical doc- 


* Entre ces deux chemins j’hésite et je m’ arréte. 
Je voudrais a I’ écart suivre un plus doux sentier. 
Il n’ en existe pas, dit une voix secréte: 
En présence du Ciel, il faut croire ou nier. 
Je le pense, en effet: les Ames tourmentées 
Vers l un et l autre excés se portent tour & tour; 
Mais les indifférents ne sont que des athées ; 
Ils ne dormiraient plus, s’ ils doutaient un seul jour. 


136 LECTURE III. 


trines. Faith in God the Creator is in their eyes 
a superstition; this is their only settled dogma. 
In other respects they indulge in theses the most 
contradictory. Most generally they deify man, 
declaring that there is no other God than the idea 
of humanity, no other infinite than the indefinite 
character of the aspirations of our own soul. At 
other times they proclaim an undisguised materi- 
alism, and look for the explanation of all things 
in atoms and in the law which governs them. 
They make to themselves a two-faced idol, one 
of these faces being called nature, and the other 
‘humanity. What strangely increases the confu- 
sion is that all the terms of language change 
meaning as employed by their pen. They speak 
of God, of duty, of religion, of immortality ; their 
pages seem sometimes to be extracted from mys- 
tical writings; but these sacred words have for 
them a totally different meaning than for the ordi- 
nary run of their readers. Their God is not a 
Being, their religion is not a worship, their duty 
is not a law, their immortality is not the hope of a 
world to come. Amidst these equivocations and 
- contradictions thought is blunted, and the sinews 
of the intellect are unstrung. The public, be- 
witched by talent and captivated by success, is 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. It 2 


deluged with writings which have the same effect 
as the talk of a frivolous man, or the showy tattle 
of a woman of the world. They give an agree- 
able exercise to the mind, without ever allowing 
it to form either a precise idea or a settled judg- 
ment. 

Many are the clouds then on the intellectual 
horizon of France. Glance over the recent pro- 
ductions of French philosophy, and you will have 
no difficulty in recognizing the gravity of the situ- 
ation. Works are multiplying with the object of 
defending the existence of God, Providence, the 
immortality of the soul: dams are being raised 
against the rising flood of atheism.* And here is 
a fact still more significant, namely, that the his- 
torians of ideas, whether they are recurring to 
the most remote antiquity, or are passing in re- 
view the worst errors of modern days, cannot 
meet with the negation of God, without having 


* See, for example, La Religion naturelle, by Jules Simon; 
Essai de philosophie religieuse, by Emile Saisset; De la con- 
naissance de Dieu, by A. Gratry; La raison et la christianisme, 
douze lectures sur l’existence de Dieu, by Charles Secrétan; 
Essai sur la Providence, by Ernest Bersot; De la Providence, 
by M. Damiron; ZL’ /dee de Dieu, by M. Caro; Théodicée, 
Ltudes sur Dieu, la Création et la Providence, par Amédée de 
Magerie. 


138 LECTURE III. 


their eyes thus turned to Paris, and their attention 
directed to contemporary productions.* 

I hence infer, that atheism is raising its head 
in France, and there presenting itself under two 
forms. Materialism is appearing principally as 
an heritage from ‘the last century. The new, 
or rather renewed, doctrine is the adoration of 
man by man. We are now going to cross the 
Rhine. 

A powerful thinker, Hegel, had supreme sway 
in the last movement of speculative thought in 
Germany. Hegel’s system of doctrine is envel- 
oped in clouds. It is so ambiguous in regard to 
the questions which most directly concern the 
conscience and human interests, that it has been 
pretended to deduce from it, on the one hand a 
Christian theology, and on the other a sheer 
atheism. There isa story, whether a true one or 
not I cannot say, that this philosopher when near 
his end uttered the following words: “I have only 
had one disciple who has understood me—and 
he has misunderstood me.” A man distinguished 
in metaphysical research by taste, genius, and 


* See, for example, the Etudes orientales of M. Franck, the 
Bouddha of M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire;' L’Hzstotre de la 
philosophie au XVILL siécle, of M. Damiron. | 


——ee le pee 


— Se 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. I39 


science, and who has, in that respect, devoted 
particular attention to Germany, M. Charles 
Secrétan, writes with reference to the fundamental | 
principle of the entire Hegelian system: “If you 
ask me how I understand the matter, I will give 
you no answer; I do not understand it at all, and 
I do not believe that any one has ever understood 
it.” * You will excuse me, Gentlemen, from here 
undertaking the scientific study of so difficult a 
system. It will be enough for us to render the 
darkness visible, that is to say, to understand well 
what it is which the doctrine of the Berlin Pro- 
fessor, in a certain sense, renders incomprehen- 
sible. 

The foundation of his theory is that the uni- 
verse is explained by an eternal idea, an idea 
which exists by itself, without appertaining to any 
mind. The Hegelians say that the existence of 
an infinite Mind is an inadmissible conception. 
They reject this mystery, and prefer to it the 
palpable absurdity of an idea which exists in 
itself, without being the act of an intelligence. 
This idea-God we have already encountered in 
the writings of M. Vacherot. We shall find it 
again more than once as we go on. In Germany, 


* Philosophie de la liberteé, vol. i. p. 225. 


I40 LECTURE III. 


as in France, the theory only becomes popular by 


undergoing a transformation. The eternal idea © 


manifests itself in the mind of man, and exists 
nowhere else. Above this idea there is nothing. 
Man is therefore the summit of things; it is he 
who must be adored. And thus it is in fact that 
Hegel has been understood. In the spring of 
1880, Henri Heine wrote as follows in the Gazette 
d’ Augsbourg: “1 begin to feel that I am not pre- 
cisely a biped deity, as Professor Hegel declared 
to me that I was twenty-five years ago.” The 
deification of man: such is the popular translation 
of the philosophy of the idea. Would you have 
a further proof of this? The following anecdote 
was current in my youth, when German idealism 
was at the height of its popularity. A student 
going to call on one of his fellow-students, found 
him stretched on his bed, or his sofa, and exhib- 
iting all the signs of an ecstatic contemplation. 
“Why, what are you doing there?” inquired the 
visitor. “Jam adoring myself,” replied the young 
adept in philosophy. 

I am not examining the doctrines of Hegel 
with reference to the history of metaphysics, and 
within the precincts of the school in which it 


occupies a large place and demands the most 


ee 


ee en 


— 


— 


a a 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. I41I 


serious attention; I am tracing the influence of 
those doctrines on the public mind at large. This 
influence is visible in the most disastrous conse- 
quences of atheism. “It certainly is not the 
Hegelian school alone,” says. M. Saint-Réné 
Taillandier, “which has produced all the moral 
miseries of the nineteenth century, all those un- 
bridled desires, all those revolts of matter in a 
fury ;* but it sums them all up in its formule, it 
gives them, by its scientific way of representing 
them, a pernicious authority, it multiplies them 
by an execrable propaganda.” 

It was through Feuerbach principally that the 
evolution was to be brought about which has led 
the Hegelian system, severely idealistic in its 
commencement, to favor at length ¢he revolts of 
matter run mad. And this evolution is only 
natural after all. If the universe is the develop- 
ment of an idea, and not the work of an intelligent 
Will, all is necessary in the world, for the devel- 
opment of an idea is a matter of destiny. Where 
all is necessary, all is legitimate: the desires of — 
the flesh as well as the laws of thought and of 
conscience. But, from the moment that the flesh 


* Toutes ces révoltes de la matitre en furie. 
t+ Revue des Deux Mondes, April, 1850. 


142 LECTURE III. 


is emancipated, it aims at absolute empire, and 
ends by obtaining it: this is matter of fact. 
Feuerbach has put atheism into a definite shape, 
and disengaged it from all obscurity. There 
exists no other infinite than the infinite in our 
thoughts; above us there exists nothing; no law 
which binds us, no power which governs us: the 
work of modern science is to set man free from 
God, for God is an idol. But man thus set free 
from all bonds and from all duty is not, for Feuer- 
bach, the individual, but humanity. The indi- 
vidual owes himself to his species ; “the true sage 
will make no more silly and fantastic sacrifices, 
but he will never refuse sacrifices which are 
really serviceable to humanity.” * 

Here then is still a bond, a religion, and sacri- 
fices; the emancipation is incomplete. What is 
this humanity to which man owes himself? An 
abstraction, an idol still, an idol to be overthrown 
if he would obtain perfect independence. Listen 
to the German Stirmer, deducing from the doc- 
trine its extreme consequences: “Perish the 
people,” he exclaims, “perish Germany, perish 
all the nations of Europe; and let man, rid of all 


* Qw est-ce la religion? page 586 of the translation of 
Ewerbeck. 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. 143 


bonds, delivered from the last phantoms of reli- 
gion, recover at length his full independence !” * 
All the mists of abstraction have now disappeared : 
here we are on ground which is hideously clear. 
Humanity is no longer in question, but the wor- 
ship of self; it is the complete enfranchisement 
of selfishness. 

While the proud idealism of the Germans was 
thus, by its own weight, descending into the level 
flats of thought, a political movement was agitat- 
ing Germany. Simple-minded poets were cele- 
brating atheism with an enthusiasm which seemed 
sincere; and, at the same time, men who are not 
simple-minded, journalists and demagogues, were 
laying hold of the irreligion as a lever with which 
to make a breach in the social edifice. In the 
year 1845, the attention of the Swiss authorities 
was drawn to certain secret societies, composed 
of Germans, and having for their object a revo- 
lution in Germany, but which had established 
their basis of operations on the Swiss territory. 
The inquiries of the police issued in the discovery 
of twenty-seven clubs bound together by secret 
correspondence. Working-men were induced on 
various pretexts to attend meetings, of which the 

* Revue des Deux Mondes of 15th April, 1850, p. 288. 


144 LECTURE III. 


real object was only gradually disclosed to them. 
If they were reckoned worthy, they were initiated 
into the plan of a social reform, the basis of which 
was atheism.* One of the principal agents in this 
work of proselytism, Guillaume Marr, exclaimed : 
“ Faith in a personal and living God is the origin 
and the fundamental cause of our miserable social 
condition.” And he deduced as follows the prac- 
tical consequence of his theory : “The idea of 
God is the key-stone of the arch of a tottering 
civilization; let us destroy it. ‘The.true road to 
liberty, to equality, and to happiness, is atheism. 
‘No safety on earth, so long as man holds on by a 
thread to heaven.— Let nothing henceforward 
shackle the spontaneity of the human mind. Let 
us teach man that there is no other God than 
himself, that he is the Alpha and the Omega of 
all things, the superior being, and the most real 
reality.” We have still to explain the nature of 
this spontaneity, free from every shackle. One 
of the editors of the journal conducted by Marr 
discloses it by quoting some verses in which 


* General Report addressed to the Consezl d’ Etat of Neu- 
chatel on the secret German propaganda, and on the clubs of 
Young Germany in Switzerland, by Lardy, Doctor of law. 
Neuchatel, 1845. 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. 145 


Henri Heine expresses the wish to see great vices, 
bloody and colossal crimes, provided he may be 
delivered from a worthy-citizen virtue, and an 
honest-merchant morality!* A little later, a 
journal of German Switzerland asserted, that in 
order to set free man’s natural instincts and pro- 
pensities, it is indispensable to destroy the idea of 
God.t 

These, I am well aware, are the screams of a 
savage madness. But after all, and be this as it 
may, Marr was publishing his journal at Lausanne 
in 1845, and in 1848 he was named representative 
of the people, by a considerable majority, in one 
of the largest cities of Germany. And this was 
by no means an isolated fact. Atheism showed 
itself in the ephemeral parliament of Frankfort 
as a sort of party, of which M. Vogt, says the 
_ £Levue des Deux Mondes, was the great orator.t{ 

The German revolution was put down by the 
bayonet, but the doctrines of which it had revealed 
the existence, left vestiges for a long time in the 


* Pourvu gw on le délivre d’ une vertu bourgeoise et d’ une 
morale d’ honnétes négociants. Blatter der Gegenwart fiir 
sociales Leben. 

t See the Chronigueur Suisse of 19 Jan. 1865. 

t April, 1850, p. 292. 

10 


146 LECTURE III. 


country of the terror which they had inspired. 
Alarm was felt for the various interests threatened, 
and noble souls were stirred with compassion by 
the conviction forced upon them of the spiritual 
miseries of their brethren. A powerful reaction 
took place, as well in the religious as the philo- 
sophical world. This reaction has produced 
salutary results ; but the object is not fully attained. 
Open the journals and the reviews, and you will 
learn that Germany is, in these days, the prin- 
cipal centre of materialism. It is unhappily so 
rich in this respect, that it can afford to engage 
in exportation, and to furnish professors of the 
school to other countries of Europe. 

Doctor Biichner has published, under the title 
of Force and Matter, a small volume which has 
rapidly reached a seventh edition, and has lately 
been translated into French.* Materialism is 
there set forth with perfect arrogance, or, to speak 
more moderately, with perfect audacity. The 
author pretends to confine himself strictly within 
the domain of experience, and it is wonderful 
with what haughtiness he proscribes the re- 


* Force et Matiére, by Louis Biichner, Doctor in medicine : 
translated into French from the seventh edition of the German 
MATS by Gamper, Leipzig, 1863. 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. 147 


~ searches of philosophy. It would seem therefore 
that the question of the nature of things ought to 
remain outside the circle of his studies. Never- 
theless, he declares matter to be eternal and the 
universe infinite. I ask you how long it would 
be necessary to have lived in order to pronounce 
matter eternal in the name of experience; and 
what journeys it would have been necessary to 
make, before ascertaining by means of observa- 
tion that the universe is infinite. We shall have 
occasion to recur to this subject. Meanwhile we 
may be very sure that experience supplies no 
system of metaphysics, and that materialism is a 
metaphysical system as strongly marked as any. 
When its adepts cry out, Away with philosophy ! 
they mean by that simply : We will have no good 
philosophy, that we may be free to make bad 
philosophy of our own without rivalry. <A pro- 
ceeding which reminds one of certain demagogues 
who cry with all their might, Down with tyrants ! 
and who thus succeed in making out of the fear — 
of the tyranny of others the solid foundation of 
their own despotism. 

We find then in Germany, first of all the doc- 
trine of the idea set forth with éclat by Hegel, 
then atheism mixed up with political notions and 


148 LECTURE III. 


projects, and lastly materialism. The elements 
are the same as in France, but exhibit themselves 
in a different order. This diversity suggests some 
observations worth your attention. 

France, setting out with the materialism of the 
eighteenth century, rose to that adoration of man 
which characterizes at the present day the greater 
part of its atheistical manifestations. German 
atheism, having as its starting-point an abstract 
idealism of which the adoration of man was the 
result, has descended to the levels of materialism.* 

We may inquire into the theory of these facts, and 
“say why materialism rises to the adoration of man 
by a natural movement; and why, also by a 
natural movement, the adoration of man descends 
again to materialism. 

* My object is to point out the atheistical systems which are 
being produced in various parts of Europe, and not to estimate, 
in a general way, the tendency of contemporary philosophies. 
The reader, who would understand the position occupied by 
materialism in relation to German thought in general, may 
consult with advantage, Le Matérialisme contemporain, by 
Paul Janet, Paris, 1864; and the review of this work by M. 
Reichlin-Meldegg (Zedtschrift fiir Philosophie, Sechsundvier- 
zigster Band). A Swiss writer, M. Bohner, has lately published 
a learned work on the subject entitled: Le Matérialisme au 
point de vue des sciences naturelles et des progres de VT esprit 
humain, by Nath. Bohner, member of the Soczété helvétigue 


des sciences naturelles, translated from the German, by O. 
Bourrit, 1 vol. Svo. (Geneve, imprimerite Fick), 1861. 


er Ea 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. I49 


Materialism infers from its principles the denial 
of any future to man, and not only any future, 
but any true value, any real existence. We are 
nothing but an agglomeration of molecules, ready 
to separate without leaving any trace of ever hav- 
ing been together. Is not this a thing to be said 
sadly, as the saddest thing in the world? Why 
then are the apostles of matter nearly always 
assuming the loftiest tone, and uttering shouts of 
triumph? It is that they feel themselves free, 
emancipated from that terror which has made the 


gods, 
. . . that brood of idle fear 
Fine nothings worshipped, — wy, doth not appear ; 
The gods — whom man made, and who made not man.* 


Emancipation! Such is the watchword of mate- 
rialism. Listen, for example, to the conclusion 
of Baron d’Holbach’s System of ature: “ Break 
the chains,” says he, “which are binding men. 
Send back those gods who are afflicting them to 
those imaginary regions from whence fear first 
drew them forth. Inspire with courage the intel- 
ligent being; give him energy; let him dare at 

* . . . Ces enfants de I’ effroi, 

Ces beaux riens qu’ on adore, et sans savoir pourquoi, 


Ces dieux que homme a faits et qui n’ ont pas fait ’ homme. 
CyYRANO DE BERGERAC. 


I50 LECTURE IiIl. 


length to love himself, to esteem himself, to feel 
his own dignity ; let him dare to emancipate him- 
self, let him be happy and free.” Strange ac- 
cents these, at the close of a large philosophical 
treatise intended to prove that there is nothing in 
the universe but matter. Whence proceeds the 
dignity of that fragment of matter which calls 
itself man? Understand well what passes in the 
mind of these philosophers. In proportion as 
man lowers his own origin, in the same pro- 
portion, — if he does not wish to make himself a 
brute, in order to live as do the animals, — he 
‘exalts himself in an inevitable sentiment of pride. 
In vain does he give out that the material frame 
is everything ; he feels that thought is more than 
the material frame ; and he accords to himself the 
first place in the universe. The materialist ig- 
nores the Eternal Mind in order to emancipate 
himself; and whatever he may say, his real deity 
is not the atom, but himself. The encyclopedists, 
sons of an age which yielded at once to noble 
influences and to guilty seductions, united the 
worship of progress to a degrading philosophy. 
Consider with what a feeling of pride they low- 
ered man, and you will understand why eternal 
nature gave place to sacred humanity. When 


a 


 — 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. I51I 


France had fallen into the delirium of irreligion, 
it was not a little dust in an earthen vase which 
was offered for public adoration, but they led in 
procession through the streets of Paris a woman 
who was called the goddess Reason. 
So it was that materialism ended in the adora- 
tion of man. Let us endeavor to understand how 
the adoration of man turns again to materialism. 
The mind endowed with intelligence and will is 
more elevated in the scale of being than inert 
bodies. This is for us an evident truth. Could 
one demonstrate it by reasoning? I do not know; 
but in contesting it, we should contradict the plain- 
est evidence. Reason is superior to matter. If, 
with the school which extends from Pythagoras 
to Saint Augustine, and from Saint Augustine to 
Descartes, we connect reason with God as its 
principle, the grand science of metaphysics is 
founded. But if reason does not rise to God, 
what will happen? This reason, which pro- 
claims itself superior to matter, is not, as we 
have said already, the individual thought of 
Francis, Peter, or John. If an individual pre- 
sented himself as being reason itself, the absolute 
reason, and said, “I am the truth,” it would be 
necessary to take one of three courses. If we 


152 LECTURE III. 


thought that he spoke truly, and if we received 
his testimony, it would be necessary to worship 
him, for he would be God. If it were feared that 
he spoke truly, and those who so feared were 
unwilling to acknowledge his rule, it would be 
necessary for them to kill him in order to en- 
deavor to kill the truth. If it were thought that 
he spoke falsely, it would be necessary to watch 
him, and the moment he committed an act dan- 
gerous for society, to shut him up, for he would 
be a madman. But the philosophers make no 
such pretension. The reason of which they 
speak is the reason common to all, a reason 
which is not that of an individual, but that of 
which all rational individuals partake. This 
common, universal, eternal reason, — where and 
how does it exist? Reason manifests itself by 
ideas, and ideas are the acts of minds. ‘To im- 
agine an idea without a mind of which it is the 
act, is the same thing as to imagine a movement 
without a body of which it is also the act, ina 
different sense. Take away bodies, and there is 
no more movement. Take away intelligences, 
and there are no more ideas. The philosopher 
who speaks of an idea which is not the idea of an 
intelligence, utters words which have no mean- 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. 153 


ing. The reason which is not that of any created 
individual remains therefore absolutely inconceiv- 
able without the eternal Spirit, or God. Ideal- 
ism is based upon this impossible conception. 
Thus it is that thought, trying in vain to maintain 
itself in this abstract domain, ends by holding as 
chimerical the world of ideas in which it has met 
with nothing to which to cling. It is seized with 
giddiness and falls. Whither does it fall? To the 
ground. It is always thither one falls. Wearied 
with its efforts to find footing on shifting clouds, 
the human mind comes back to the foszt:ve by 
a violent reaction. Here is the secret of that 
haughty and derisive materialism of certain mod- 
ern Germans, who jeer and scoff at the lofty 
pretensions of philosophy. So it was that Hegel 
brought upon the scene Doctor Buchner and his 
fellows. 

The great conflict of the spiritual world is not, 
as it is often said to be, the combat of idealism 
against materialism. Idealism begins well, and 
we must not refuse to acknowledge the services 
which it has rendered to the cause of truth. But 
philosophy must follow the road traced out in an 
ancient adage: Ad exterioribus ad tnteriora, ab 
tntertoribus ad supertora.* If the mind does not 


* From outer to inner things, and from inner to higher. 


154 LECTURE III. 


go to the end of this royal road; if idealism, 
having surmounted the fascinations of the senses, 
remains in ideas, without ascending to the su- 
preme Mind, the worship of matter and the wor- 
ship of the idea call mutually one to another, and 
revolve in a fatal circle. The struggle between 
these two forms of atheism reminds one of those 
duels, in which, after having satisfied honor, 
the adversaries breakfast together, and gather 
strength to combat, in case of need, a common 
enemy. The great combat which forms the main 
subject of the history of ideas is the combat be- 
‘tween belief in God and an atheistical philosophy. 
Whether atheism admits for its first principle an 
atom without a Creator, or a reason without an 
Eternal Mind, is a fact very important for the 
history of philosophy, but the importance of 
which is small enough in regard to the interests 
of humanity. 

We passed the Rhine in order to penetrate into 
Germany, let us now cross the British Channel, 
and observe what is going on in England. 

England, at the close of the seventeenth and 
the beginning of the eighteenth century, was the 
principal centre of irreligion. France gave the 
patent of European circulation to ideas which 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. 155 


proceeded in part from this foreign source. An 
active propaganda for the diffusion of impious 
and immoral writings had been established in 
Great Britain. A strong reaction set in, and, 
dating from the year 1698, we see formed various 
societies having for their object the diffusion of 
good books and respectable journals.* These 
efforts were crowned with success. England, by 
its zeal in the work of Missions, by its sacrifices 
for the diffusion of the Holy Scriptures, and by its 
respect for the Lord’s-day,t assumed ¢ the char- 
acteristic marks of a Christian nation. Grand 
measures adopted in the interests of liberty and 
humanity, placed it at the same time at the head 
of a seriously philanthropic civilization; but as 
Pére Gratry has remarked, “more than in any 
other people, there are in the English people the 
old man and the new.”§ The strange contrasts 
which are presented by the political action of this 

* See the Report of Mr. H. Roberts, in the Comptes rendus 
du Congres international de bienfatsance de Londres, vol. ii. . 
page 95, and the 23rd Bulletin de la Société genevoise d’ utilité 
publique, 1863. 

+ Par son respect pour le jour du Dimanche. 

t revétit. 

§ La Paix méditations histoyiques et religteuses, par A. 


Gratry, prétre de |’ Oratoire.— Septi¢me méditation: I’ An- 
gleterre. 


156 LECTURE III. 


double-people are found also in the productions 
of its thought, in which, while the spirit of piety 
is displayed full of life, the spirit of irreligion is 
also manifested with terrible energy. A book is 
instanced, of materialistic tendency,* published 
in 1828, of which a popular edition was printed 
with a view to extend the opinions which it ad- 
vocated. There was sold of this edition, in a 
short time, more than eighty thousand copies. A 
thoughtful writer, Mr. Pearson, mentions a statis- 
tical statement, according to which English pub- 
lications, openly atheistical, reached, in the year 
1851, a total of six hundred and forty thousand 
copies. ft 

If we pass from the current literature to scien- 
tific publications, we shall meet with facts of the 
same order. The Hegelianism and the scepti- 
cism of the’ critical school are creeping into the 
works of some theologians. The theories of posi- 
tivism, reduced to shape in France, have passed 
the channel, and have obtained in England more 
attention perhaps than in the country of their 


* The Constitution of Man, by G. Combe. The popular 
edition was printed at the expense of Mr. Henderson. 

+ Infidelity: tts aspects, causes, and agencies, by Thomas 
Pearson. People’s edition, 1854, page 263. 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. 157 


origin. They have been adopted by a distin- 
guished author, Mr. Stuart Mill; and a female 
writer, Miss Martineau, has set them forth, in her 
mother-tongue, for the use of her fellow-country- 


men.* 


Positivism is even in vogue, and has be- 
come “ fashionable” amongst certain literary and 
intellectual circles in Great Britain. 

In less elevated regions of the intellectual world 
of England, an organized sect commends itself to 
our attention. This sect has given to its system 
of doctrine the name of Secularism. It has a 
social object—the destruction of the Established 
Church and the existing political order. It hasa 
philosophy, the purport and bearing of which we 
will inquire of Mr. Holyoake. The following is 
the answer of the chief of the secularists : —“ All 
that concerns the origin and end of things, God 
and the immortal soul, is absolutely impenetrable 
for the human mind. ‘The existence of God, in 

* Auguste Comte et la Philosophie positive, par E. Littré, 
page 276. 

+ ‘‘ Positivism, within the last quarter of a century, has be- 
come an active, and even fashionable mode of thought, and 
nowhere more so than amongst certain literary and intellectual 
circles in England.” The Christ of the Gospels and the Christ 
“of modern Criticism, Lectures on M. Renan’s ‘Vie de Fésus,’ 


— by John Tulloch, D.D., Principal of the College of St. Mary 
in the University of St. Andrew. Macmillan and Co., 1864. 


158 LECTURE III. 


particular, must be referred to the number of ab- 
stract questions, with the ticket zot determined. 
It is probable, however, that the nature which we 
know, must be the God whom we inquire after. 
What is called atheism is found zz suspension 


in our theory.” * 


The practical consequence of 
these views is, that all day-dreams relating to 
another world must be put aside, and we must 
manage so as to live to the best advantage pos- 
sible in the present life.t Hence the name of the 
system. Secularism teaches its disciples to have 
nothing to do with religion in any shape, that 
they may confine themselves strictly to the pres- 
ent life. It is an attempt of which the express 
object is to realize life without God. 

These doctrines formed the subject of public 
discussions, in London in 1853, and at Glasgow 
in 1854. The meeting at Glasgow numbered, it 
is said, more than three thousand persons.t The 
sect employs as its means of action open-air 
speeches, the publication of books and journals, § 

* See Pearson: Infidelity, particularly page 316, and Chris- 
tianity and Secularism, the public discussion—, particularly 
page 8. + — dans le siécle. 

{ Vapereau’s Dictionnaire des contemporains — Art. Hot- 
YOAKE. 

§ I have had in view here the first numbers of The Secular 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. I59 


and assemblies for giving information and holding 
debates in lecture-rooms. There are five of these 
lecture-rooms in London. I have seen the pro- 
gramme, for 1864, of the meetings held at No. 12, 
Cleveland Street, under the direction of Messrs. 
Holyoake and J. Clark. There are, every Sun- 
day, 


a discourse at eleven o’clock, a discussion 
at three o’clock, a lecture at seven o’clock. The 
programme invites all free-thinkers to attend these 
meetings. Some of the assemblies are public; 
for others a small entrance fee is demanded. 
London is the principal centre of the association ; 
but it has branches all over the country, and it 
numbers in Great Britain twenty-one lecture- 
rooms, particularly at Liverpool, Manchester, 
Birmingham, Glasgow, and Edinburgh.* Secu- 
larism naturally seeks to magnify, as much as 
may be, its own importance; and it is not to the 
declarations of its apostles that we must refer in 
order to estimate the extent and influence of its 
action. At the same time the existence of a soci- 
ety, the avowed object of which is the diffusion of 
practical atheism, cannot be regarded with indif- 


World, and of The National Reformer, Secular Advocate, for 
1864. 


* The National Reformer of 2nd Jan. 1864. 


160 LECTURE III. 


ference. At the present moment the affairs of 
the sect would not appear to be flourishing. A 
year ago a secularist orator had delivered a vehe- 
ment speech in favor of virtue. Just as he had 
resumed his seat, a policeman entered the room 
and took him into custody. <A few days after- 
wards the 7Zzmes informed its readers that the 
orator of virtue had just been condemned for theft 
to twelve months’ hard labor.* In the Secular 


World of the 1st January, 1864, Mr. Holyoake- 


complains that a great many mauvars sujets seem 
to seek in secularism a kind of cheap religion. 
He declares that he is going to use energetic 
efforts to purify the sect, and seems to intimate 
that he shall retire if his efforts fail. Let us leave 
him to wrestle against the invasion of the orators 
of virtue, and let us pass from England into Italy. 

While Italy is seeking to deliver itself from the 
bayonets of Austria, it is threatened with subjec- 
tion to the influence of the most pernicious Ger- 
man doctrines. After having bent, like nearly 
all Europe, in the eighteenth century, beneath 
the blast of sensualism, Italy made a noble effort 
to renew more generous traditions. Two emi- 
nent men, Rosmini and Gioberti, the second espe- 


* MS. information. 


ee ee ee 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. I6I 


cially, succeeded in exciting in the youth of Italy 
a passionate interest in doctrines in which liberty 
and vigor of thought were united with the confi- 
dence of faith. This intellectual movement pre- 
ceded and prepared a national movement, the 

“course of which has been precipitated by the in- 
trigues of politics and the intervention of the arms 
of the foreigner. At the present time the influ- 
ence of Rosmini and of Gioberti is on the decline. 
Hegelianism is being installed with a certain éclat 
in the university of Naples. Nothing warrants 
us in hoping that this system will not produce 
upon the shores of the Mediterranean the same 
depravation of philosophic thought which it has 
produced in Germany. In the ancient university 
of Pisa, M. Auguste Conti, a brave defender of 
Christian philosophy, steadfastly maintains the 
union of religion and of speculative inquiry,* 
and the centre of Italy is less affected perhaps 
than the extremities of the Peninsula by the spirit 
of infidelity. But as we go further north, we - 
encounter in the writings of Ferrari the utterance 
* Readers unacquainted with the Italian language will find 

a compendious exposition of M. Conti’s philosophy, in a small 
volume published, in 1863, under the title of Le Camposanto 
de Pise ou le Scepticisme. (Paris, librairies Joel Cherbuliez 


et Auguste Durand; 1 vol. in-18.) 
II 


"162 LECTURE III. 


of a gloomy scepticism, and in those of Ausonio 
Franchi, formerly a journalist at Turin, and now 
a Professor at Milan, the manifestations of an ; 
almost undisguised atheism. Ausonio Franchi, : 
or rather the man who assumes that pseudonyme, 
is an ex-priest, who, “while maintaining severely 
the rule of good morals and the dignity of life,” * 
has turned with violent animosity against his for- 
mer faith. He exerts some influence over the 
youth of Italy, and has met with warm admirers 
in England and Germany. Franchi’s profession 
of faith reduces itself to these very simple terms: 
— ‘The world is what it is, and it is because zt ts ; 
any other reason whatever of its essence and of 
its existence can be nothing but a sophism or an 
illusion.” + All inquiry into the origin of things 
is a pure chimera, and we must therefore limit 
ourselves to the experience of the present life, 
and look for nothing beyond it. The author 
treats with sufficient disdain arguments which 
satisfied Descartes, Newton, and Leibnitz. It 
has seemed to me that his understanding, a little 


* Such is the testimony rendered to him by M. Aug. Conti 
in his work, La Philosophie ttalienne. (Paris, Joél Cherbu- 
liez et Auguste Durand; one small vol. 18mo.) 

+ Le Rationalisme (in French), published with an intro- 
duction, by M. D. Bancel, Brussels, 1858, page 27. 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. 163 


obscured by passion, misconceives the true pur- 
port of the reasonings which it rejects, and by 
thus impairing their force, assumes to itself the 
right to despise them. 

The religious negations of Ausonio Franchi do 
not stop at Christian dogma. He denies all value 
to those higher aspirations of the human soul 
which constitute reason, in the philosophical 
meaning of the term. Now, this radical nega- 
tion of the reason is what those Italians who do 
not scruple to practise it denominate Rationalism. 
And this very unwarrantable use of a word is in 
fact only a particular case of a general phenome- 
non. ‘To criticise, means to examine the thoughts 
which present themselves to the mind in order to 
distinguish error from truth. The Frenchmen, 
who call themselves the crétécs, are men who 
require that the intellect shall make itself the 
impartial mirror of ideas, but shall renounce the 
while all discrimination between truth and error. 
The term scepticism, in its primary signification, - 
contains the idea of inquiring, of examining ; and 
they give the name of sceftics to the philosophers 
who declare that there is nothing to discover, and 
consequently nothing to examine, or to search 
for! One is a free-thinker only on the express 


. 


164 | LECTURE III. 


condition of renouncing all such free exercise of 
thought as might lead to the acceptance of beliefs 
generally received. This is verily the carnival of 
language, and the dal masgué of words. ‘These 
corruptions of the meaning of terms are highly 
instructive. Doctrines contrary to the. laws of 
human nature bear witness in this way to a secret 
shame in producing themselves under their true 
colors. Just as hypocrisy is an homage which 
vice pays to virtue, so these barbarisms are an 
homage which error pays to truth. 

-To return to Italy: that beautiful and noble 
country has not escaped the revival of atheism. 
The intoxication of a new liberty, and the politi- 
cal struggles in which the Papacy is at present 
engaged, will favor for a time, it may be feared, 
the development of evil doctrines.* But the lively 
genius of the Italians will not be long in attaching 


* The learned author appears to intimate that the distrac- 
tions of the Papacy, consequent on its political struggles for 
temporal power, hinder the salutary influence which it might 
otherwise exercise in the suppression of evil doctrines. The 
Translator feels it due to himself to state here, once for all, 
that he has no sympathy whatever with such a view of the 
influence of the Papacy. On the contrary, he is disposed to 
attribute to the Church of Rome most of the evils which afflict, 
not Italy only, but all the countries over which she has any pow- 
er. Perhaps, having “felt the weight of too much liberty” in 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. 165 


itself again to the grand traditions of its past his- 
tory; and the inhabitants of the land, whose soil 
was trodden by Pythagoras and Saint Augustine, 
will not link themselves with doctrines which 
always run those who hold them aground sooner 
or later upon the sad and gloomy shores of a vul- 
gar empiricism. 

We have not leisure, Gentlemen, to extend our 
study to all parts of the globe, and besides, there 
are countries with regard to which information 
would fail me. Therefore I say nothing of Hol- 
land, where we should have, as I know, distress- 
ing facts to record. The silence imposed on 
Spain upon the subjects which we are discussing 
would render the study of that country a difficult 
one. Iam wanting in data regarding America. 
Let us conclude our survey by a few words about 
Russia. 


his own Church, the excellent author, fundamentally sound 
in his own views of Christian doctrine, as is proved abun- 
dantly by his writings, has been led by a natural reaction to _ 
give too much weight to the opposite principle of authority. 
The concluding pages of his former work, La Vie Eternelle, 
indicate a mind too painfully and sensitively averse to all con- 
troversy with a corrupt Church, in consideration of the’ ac- 
knowledged excellences of many of her individual members, 
—her Pascals, Fénélons, Martin Boos, Girards, Gratrys, and 
Lacordaires. — Translator. 


166 LECTURE (IIs 


2 


If we are warranted in making general asser- 
tions in speaking of that immense empire, we 
may say that the Russian people, taken as a 
whole, is good and pious, badly instructed, and 
often the victim of ignorance or of superstition, 
but disposed to open its heart to elevated and pure 
influences. The clergy is ignorant, though with 
honorable and even brilliant exceptions. It is too 
much cut off from general society, and consigned 
to a sort of caste, of which it would be most desir- 
able to break down the barriers, in order to allow 
the influence of the representatives of religion to 
extend itself more freely. The young nobles, 
and the university students in general, are, in 
too large a proportion, imbued with irreligious 
principles. Various atheistical writings, those 
of Feuerbach amongst others, have been translated 
into Russian, printed abroad, and furtively intro- 
duced into the empire. M. Herzen, a well-known 
writer, has published, under the pseudonyme of 
Iscander, a work full of talent, but in which come 
plainly into view the worst tendencies of our time.* 
In his eyes, life is itself its own end and cause. 
Faith in God is the portion of the ignorant crowd, 
and atheism, like all the high truths of science, 


* Del autre rive (in Russian). 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. 167 


like the differential calculus and the laws of 
physics, is the exclusive possession of the philo- 
sophical few. When Robespierre declared athe- 
ism aristocratic, he was right in this sense, for 
atheism is above the reach of the vulgar; but 
when he concluded that atheism was false, he 
made a great mistake. This error, which led 
him to establish the worship of the Supreme 
Being, was one of the causes of his fall. When 
he began to follow in the wake of the conserva- 
tives, aS a necessary consequence he would lose 
his power.* The writings of Iscander have ex- 
erted a veritable influence in Russia. M. Her- 
zen appears to have lost much of his repute, by 
the exaggerated and outrageous course he has 
taken in politics; but it is to be feared that the 
traces of his action are not altogether effaced. 
The Russian Empire has been for a long time, 
in the eyes of the West, only an immense garri- 
son; but now for some years past it has been 
taking rank among the number of intellectual — 


* De T autre rive. vy. Consolatio.— This chapter is a dia- 
logue between a lady and a doctor. I have considered the 
doctor as expressing the thoughts of the writer. The form of 
dialogue, however, always allows an author to express his 
thoughts, while declining, if need be, the responsibility of 
them. 


168 LECTURE III. 


powers, and nowhere in Europe is the ascending 
-march of civilization displaying itself by signs so 
striking. ‘The summons to liberty of so many 
millions of men, which has just been accom- 
plished by the generous initiative of the ruling 
power, and with the consent of the nation, testi- 
fies that that vast social body is animated by the 
spirit of life and of progress. But in the solemn 
phase through which she is passing, Russia is 
exposed to a great danger. She is running the 
risk of substituting for a national development, 
drawn from the grand springs of human nature, 
a factitious civilization, in which would figure 
together the fashions of Paris, the morals of the 
coulisses of the Opera, and the most irreligious 
doctrines of the West. May God preserve her! | 

We have passed in review some of the symp- 
toms of the revival of atheism, and it is impos- 
sible not to acknowledge the gravity of the facts 
which we have established. What must especially 
awaken solicitude is, that the irreligious manifes- 
tations of thought have assumed such a character 
of generality, that the sorrowful astonishment 
which they ought to produce in us is blunted by 
habit. Fashionable reviews, (I allude especially 
to the French-speaking public), widely-circulated 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. 169 


journals which take good care not to violate pro- 
priety, and which could not with impunity offend 
the interests or prejudices of the social class from 
which their subscribers are recruited, are able to 
entertain without danger, and without exciting 
energetic protestations, the productions of an 
open, or scarcely disguised, atheism. Here are 
ample reasons for thoughtfulness ; but this thought- 
fulness must not be mingled with fear. We have 
to do with a challenge the very audacity of which 
inspires me with confidence, rather than with 
dread. In fact all the productions of irreligious 
philosophy rest on one and the same thought, the 
common watchword, of the secularism of the Eng- 
lish, of the rationalism of the Italians, of the 
positivism of the French, and which may even be 
recognized, with a little attention, under the 
haughty formulas which bear the name of Hegel. 
And the thought is this: The earth is enough for 
us, away with heaven; man suffices for himself, 
away with God; reality suffices for us, away with 
chimeras! Wisdom consists in contenting our- 
selves with the world as it is. It is attempted 
ridiculously enough to place this wisdom under 
the patronage of the luminaries of our age. We 
are bidden, forsooth, to see in the negation of the 


170 LECTURE III. 


real and living God, a conflict of progress with 
rqutine, of science with a blind tradition, of the 
modern mind with superannuated ideas.* We 
know of old this defiance hurled against the aspira- 
tions of the heart, the conscience, and the reason. 
We know the destined issue of this ancient revolt 
of the intellect against the laws of its own nature. 
There were atheists in Palestine in the days when 
the Psalmist exclaimed, “The fool hath said in 
his heart, There is no God.” |. There were athe- 
ists at Rome when Cicero wrote,t{ that the opinion 
which recognizes gods appeared to him to come 
nearest to the resemblance of truth. A poet of 
the thirteenth century has expressed in a Latin 
verse the thoughts which are in vogue among a 
great many of our contemporaries: “He dares 
nothing great, who believes that there are gods.”§ 
There were atheists in the seventeenth century, 
when Descartes exerted himself to confound 
them, and they reckoned themselves the fine 
spirits of their time. 


And who, again, does 


* Le Rationalisme, par Ausonio Franchi, page 19. — Force 
et matiére, par le docteur Biichner, page 262. — Paroles de phi- 
losophie posttive, par Littré, page 36.— La Métaphysique et la 
Sczence, par Vacherot, page xiv. (Premiére edition.) 

T 2 sna. i. t De Natura Deorum. 

§ Nil audet magnum qui putat esse Deos. 

|| See Bossuet: Sermon sur la dignité de la religion. 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. ry Ja 


not know that in the eighteenth century atheism 
marched with head aloft, and filled the world 
with its clamors. The attempt to do without God 
has nothing modern about it, it is met with at all 
epochs. The means employed now-a-days to 
attain this end have nothing new about them. 
Atheism exhibits itself in history with the charac- 
ters of a chronic malady, the outbreaks of which 
are transient crises. The moment the negation 
is blazoned openly, humanity protests. Why? 
Because man will never be persuaded to content 
himself with the earth, and with what the earth 
can give him: his nature absolutely forbids it. 
When we compare the reality with the desires of 
our souls, we can all say with the aged patriarch 
Jacob: “Few and evil have been the days of my 
pilgrimage ;” * we can all say with Lamartine : 


Though all the good desired of man 
In one sole heart should overflow, 
Death, bounding still his mortal span, 
Would turn the cup of joy to woe.t 


* Gen. xlvii. 9. 

+ Quand tous les biens que I’ homme envie 
Déborderaient dans un seul cceur, 
La mort seule au bout de la vie 
Fait un supplice du bonheur. 


172 LECTURE III. 


And it is not the heart only which is concerned 
here; without God man remains inexplicable to 
his own reason. ‘The spiritual ‘creature of the 
Almighty, free by the act of creation, and capable 
of falling into slavery by rebellion, — he under- 
stands his nature and his destiny ; but it is in vain 
that the apostles of matter and the worshippers of 
humanity harangue him in turn to explain to him 
his own existence. Man is too great to be the 
child of the dust; man is too miserable to be 
the divine summit of the universe. “If he exalts 
himself, I abase him; if he abases himself, I exalt 
him; and I contradict him continually, until he 
understands at last that he is an incomprehensible 
monster.” * 

“The proper study of mankind is man;” and 
man remains an enigma for man, if he do not rise 
to God. So it is that our very nature is a living 
protest against atheism, and never allows its tri- 
umphs to be either general, or of long duration. 
A solid limit is thus set to our wanderings; and, 
to the errors of the understanding, as to the tides 
_ of the ocean, the Master of things has said, “Ye 
shall go no further.” Therefore atheists may 
become famous, but, destitute of the ray which 


* Pascal. 


THE REVIVAL OF ATHEISM. 174 


renders truly illustrious, humanity refuses them 
the aureole with which it encircles the brows of 
its benefactors. This aureole it reserves for the 
sages which lead it to God, for the artists which 
reveal to it some of the rays of the immortal light, 
for all those who remind it of the titles of its dig- 
nity, the pledges of its future, the sacred laws of 
the realm of spirits. Humanity desires to live; 
and to live it must believe; for it must believe in 
order to love and to act. Atheism is a crisis in a 
disease, a passing swoon over which the vital 
forces of nature triumph. Now the vital forces 
of humanity are neither extinct nor stupefied in 
our time. . The world of literature is sick, and 
grievously sick in some of its departments; but 
even there again are manifesting themselves noble 
and powerful reactions. Then look in-other di- 
rections. Contemplate the religious movement 
of society at large, the wide efforts making in the 
domain of active beneficence, the progressive 
conquests of civilization, the awakening of con-_ 
science on many subjects: —I could easily in- 
stance numerous facts in proof of what I advance, 
and say to you: 


174 LECTURE III. 


Know, by these speaking signs, a God to-day 
As yesterday the same — the same for aye: 
Veiling, revealing, at His sovereign will, 

His glory, —and His people guarding still.* 


Wrestle then against the invasion of deadly 
doctrines, wrestle and do not fear. If men rise 
against God in the name of the modern mind, of 
the science of the age, of the progress of civiliza- 
tion, do not suffer yourselves to be stunned by 
these clamors. Let the past be to you the pledge 
of the future! To make of atheism a novelty, is 
an error. To make of it, in a general way, the 
characteristic of our epoch, is a calumny. 


* Reconnaissez, Messzeurs, i ces traits éclatants, 
Un Dieu tel aujourd’ hui qu’ il fut dans tous les temps. 
Il sait, quand il lui plait, faire éclater sa gloire, 
Et son peuple est toujours présent & sa mémoire. 


LECTURE) IV. 


NATURE. 


(At Geneva, 27th Nov. 1863. — At Lausanne, 25th Jan. 1864.) 


GENTLEMEN, 

The thoughts of man are number- 
less; and still, in their indefinite variety, they 
never relate but to one or another of these three 
objects: nature, or the world of material sub- 
stances, which are revealed to our senses; created 
spirits, similar or superior to that spirit which is 
ourselves; and finally God, the Infinite Being, 
the universal Creator. Therefore there are two 
sorts of atheism, and there are only two. The 
mind stops at nature, and endeavors to find in 
material substances the universal principle of ex- 
istence ; or, rising above nature, the mind stops 
at humanity, without ascending to the Infinite 
Mind, to the Creator. We have seen how clearly 


176 LECTURE Iv. 


these two doctrines appear in contemporary litera- 
ture. We have now to enter upon the examina- 
tion of them, and this will afford us matter for 
two lectures. 

The word nature has various meanings; we 
employ it here to designate matter, and the forces 
which set it in motion, those forces being con- 
ceived as blind and fatal, in opposition to the 
conscious and free force which constitutes mind. 
Matter and the laws of motion are the object of 
mechanics, of chemistry, and of physics. Do 
these sciences suffice for resolving the universal 
enigma? Such is precisely the question which 
offers itself to our examination. 

Let us first of all determine what, in pres- 
ence of the spectacle of the universe, is the natu- 
ral movement of human thought, when human 
thought possesses the idea of God. I open a 
book trivial enough in its form, but occasionally 
profound in its contents: the Yourney round my 
room, of Xavier de Maistre. The author is re- 
lating how he had undertaken to make an artifi- 
cial dove which was to sustain itself in the air by 
means of an ingenious mechanism. I read: 

“I had wrought unceasingly at its construction 
for more than three months. The day was come 


NATURE. ry 4 


for the trial. I placed it on the edge of a table, 
after having carefully closed the door, in order to 
keep the discovery secret, and to give my friends 
a pleasing surprise. A thread held the mechan- 
ism motionless. Who can conceive the palpita- 
tions of my heart, and the agonies of my self-love, 
when I brought the scissors near to cut the fatal 
bond? — Zest!—the spring of the dove starts, 
and begins to unroll itself with a noise. I lift my 
eyes to see the bird pass; but, after making a few 
turns over and over, it falls, and goes off to hide 
itself under the table. Rosine (my dog), who 
was sleeping there, moves ruefully away. Ro- 
sine, who never sees a chicken, or a pigeon, or 
the smallest bird, without attacking and pursuing 
it, did not deign even to look at my dove which 
was floundering on the floor. This gave the fin- 
ishing stroke to my self-esteem. I went to take 
an airing on the ramparts. 

“I was walking up and down, sad and out of 
spirits as one always is after a great hope disap- 
pointed, when, raising my eyes, I perceived a 
flight of cranes passing over my head. I stopped 
to have a good look at them. They were ad- 
vancing in triangular order, like the English 


column at the battle of Fontenoy. I saw them 
I2 


178 LECTURE IV. 


traverse the sky from cloud to cloud. — Ah! how 
well they fly, said I to myself. With what assur- 
ance they seem to glide along the viewless path 
which they follow.—Shall I confess it? alas! 
may I be forgiven! the horrible feeling of envy 
for once, once only, entered my heart, and it was 
for the cranes. I pursued them, with jealous 
gaze, to the boundaries of the horizon. Fora 
long while afterwards, motionless in the midst of 
the crowd which was moving about me, I kept 
observing the rapid movement of the swallows, 
and I was astonished to see them suspended in the 
air, just as if I had never before seen that phe- 
nomenon. A feeling of profound admiration, 
unknown to me till then, lighted up my soul. I 
seemed to myself to be looking upon nature for 
the first ttme. I heard with surprise the buzzing 
of the flies, the song of the birds, and that myste- 
rious and confused noise of the living creation 
which involuntarily celebrates its Author. In- 
effable concert, to which man alone has the sub- 
lime privilege of adding the accents of gratitude ! 
Who is the author of this brilliant mechanism? 
I exclaimed in the transport which animated me. 
Who is He that, opening his creative hand, let 
fly the first swallow into the air? It is He who 


NATURE. | 179 


gave commandment to these trees to come forth 
from the ground, and to lift their branches toward 
the sky !” 

Here is a charming page, and containing, 
though apparently trivial in style, a good and 
sound philosophy. Let us translate this de- 
lightful description into the heavier language of 
science. 

The intellect is one of the things with which 
we are best acquainted ; logic is the science of 
thought, and logic is perhaps, among all the 
sciences, the one best settled on its bases. The 
intellect discovers itself to us in the exercise of 
our activity. We pursue an object, we combine 
the means for attaining it, and it is the intellect 
which operates this combination. What happens 
if we compare the results of our activity with the 
results of the power manifested in the world? 
When we consider in their vast ensemble the 
means of which nature disposes, when we remark 
the infinite number of the relations of things, the 
marvellous harmony of which universal life is the 
produce, we are dazzled by the splendor of a wis- 
dom which surpasses our own as much as bound- 
less space surpasses the imperceptible spot which 
we occupy upon the earth. Think of this: the 


tSo LECTURE IV. 


science of nature is so vast that the least of its 
departments sufhices to absorb one human life- 
time. All our sciences are only in their very be- 
ginning ; they are spelling out the first lines of an 
immense book. The elements of the universe 
are numberless; and yet, notwithstanding, all 
hangs together; all things are linked one to 
another in the closest connection. The savants 
therefore find themselves in a strange embarrass- 
ment. They are obliged to circumscribe more 
and more the field of their researches, on pain of 
losing themselves in an endless study ; and, on the 
other hand, in proportion as science advances, 
the mutual relation of all its branches becomes so 
manifest that it is ever more and more clearly 
seen that, in order to know any one thing thor- 
oughly, it would be necessary to know all. It 
needs not that we seek very high or very far 
away for occasions of astonishment: the least of 
the objects which nature presents to our view 
contains abysses of wisdom. 

The acquired results of science appear simple 
through the effect of habit. The sun rises every 
day; who is still surprised at its rising? The 
solar system has been known a long while; it is 
taught in the humblest schools, and no longer 


NATURE. ISI 


surprises any one. But those who found out, 
after long efforts, what we learn without trouble, 
the discoverers, reckoned their discoveries very 
surprising. Kepler, one of the founders of mod- 
ern astronomy, in the book to which he consigned 
his immortal discoveries, exclaims: * “The wis- 
dom of the Lord is infinite, as are also His glory 
and His power. Ye heavens! sing His praises. 
Sun, moon, and planets, glorify Him in your in- 
effable language! Praise Him, celestial harmo- 
nies, and all ye who can comprehend them! 
And thou, my soul, praise thy Creator! It is by 
Him, and in Him, that all exists. What we know 
not is contained in Him as well as our vain 
science. To Him be praise, honor, and glory 
for ever and ever!” These words, Gentlemen, 
have not been copied from a book of the Church ; 
they are read in a work which, as all allow, is 
one of the foundations of modern science. 

I pass on to another example, and I continue 
to keep you in good and high company. New- 
ton set forth his discoveries in a large volume all 
bristling with figures and calculations.t The 
work of the mathematician ended, the author 


* Harmonices mundt, libri quinque. 
+ Philosophie naturalis principia mathematica. 


182 LECTURE IV. 


rises, by the consideration of the mutual inter- 
change of the light of all the stars, to the idea of 
the unity of the creation; then he adds, and it is 
the conclusion of his entire work: “The Master 
of the heavens governs all things, not as being 
the soul of the world, but as being the Sovereign 
of the universe. It is on account of His sove- 
reignty that we call Him the Sovereign God. He 
governs all things, those which are, and those 
which may be. He is the one God, and the same 
God, everywhere and always. We admire Him 
because of His perfections, we reverence and 
adore Him because of His sovereignty. A God 
without sovereignty, without providence, and 
without object in His works, would be only des- 
tiny or nature. Now, from a blind metaphysical 
necessity, everywhere and always the same, 
could arise no variety; all that diversity of crea- 
ted things according to places and times (which 
constitutes the order and life of the universe) 
could only have been produced by the thought 
and will of a Being who is the Being, rapes by 
Himself, and necessarily.” 

Here, Sirs, are noble thoughts, expressed in 
noble style. I recommend you to read through- 
out the pages from which I have quoted a few 


NATURE. 183 


fragments. Let us now analyze the ideas of this 
great astronomer as thus expounded. We may 
note these three affirmations: 

1. The universe displays an admirable order 
which reveals the wisdom of the Power which 
governs it. 

2. The universe lives; it is not fixed, and its 
variations suppose an intelligent Power which di- 
rects it. 

3. The variable existence of the universe shows 
that it is not necessary ; it must have its cause in 
a Being who is ¢he Being, necessarily, by His 
proper nature. 

Such are the views of Newton. Examine this 
course of thought, and see if it is not natural. 
Observation reveals to us facts. Facts in them- 
selves, isolated facts, are nothing for the mind; 
but in the facts of nature, human reason discovers 
an order, and in that order it recognizes its own 
proper laws. To keep within the domain of as- 
tronomy — there is harmony between our mind 
and the course of the stars. If you have any 
doubt about this, I appeal to the almanac. We 
there find it stated that in such a month, on such 
a day, at such an hour, there will be an eclipse 
of the sun or of the moon. How comes the editor 


184 LECTURE IV. 


of the almanac to know that? He has learnt it 
from the savants who have succeeded in explain- 
ing the phenomena of the skies. The savant 
therefore can in his study meet with the intelli- 
gence which directs the universe. If he makes 
no mistake in his calculations, the eclipse begins 
at the precise hour which he has indicated. If 
the eclipse did not take place at the instant fore- 
seen, no one would suspect Nature of not follow- 
ing the course prescribed by the directing intelli- 
gence; the inference would be that there had 
been a fault in observation, or an error of figures 
on the part of the astronomer. 

When science, then, does its part well, the 
mind of man encounters another mind which is 
governing the world and maintaining it in order. 
The special science of nature stops there, as we 
shall explain further on; but this is not all that 
man requires, when he makes use of all his facul- 
ties. All is passing and changing in the domain 
of experience; and reason seeks instinctively the 
cause of changeable facts in an unchangeable 
Being, the cause of transient phenomena in an 
eternal Being. Nature, therefore, does not suffice 
to account to us for itself. It demands a power to 
direct it, an intelligence to regulate it; an absolute 


NATURE. 185 


eternal Being as its cause. This is what reason 
imperatively requires; and when we possess the 
idea of God, nature reveals to us His power and 
His wisdom. 

This is an old argument, and they call it com- 
monplace. It is commonplace, in fact; it has 
appeared over and over again in the discourses 
of Socrates, in the writings of Galen, of Kepler, 
of Newton, of Linneus. Yes, this argument has 
fallen so low as to be public property, if we can 
say that truth falls when it shines with a splendor 
vivid enough to enlighten the masses. If I de- 
sired to bring together here the testimony of all 
the savants who have seen God in nature, the 
song of all the poets who have celebrated the 
glory of the Eternal as manifested by the creation, 
the enumeration would be long, and I should soon 
tire out your patience. You can understand there- 
fore that if there are, as the misanthrope Rous- 
seau says there are, philosophers who hold in 
such contempt vulgar opinions that they prefer 
error of their own discovery to truth found out by 
other people, then the ancient argument, which 
infers the wisdom of the Creator from the order 
of the creation, must be the object of but small 
esteem with them. Still I for my part take this 


186 LECTURE IV. 


old argument for a good one, and I mean to de- 
fend it. 

Nature is verily and indeed a marvel placed 
before the observation of our minds. The growth 
of a blade of grass, the habits of an ant, contain 
for an attentive observer prodigies of wisdom. A 
drop of dew reflecting the beams of morning, the 
play of light among the leaves of a tree, reveal to 
the poet and the artist treasures of poetry. But too 
often, blinded by habit, we are unable to see; and 
when our mind is asleep, it seems to us that the 
universe slumbers. A sudden flash of light can 
sometimes arouse us from this lethargy. If 
science all at once delivers up to us some one 
of those grand laws which reveal in thousands of 
phenomena the traces of one and the same mind, 
the astonishment of our intellect excites in our 
soul an emotion of adoration. When the first 
rays of morning light up with a pure brightness 
the lofty summits of our Alps; when the sun at 
his setting stretches a path of fire along the waters 
of our lake, who does not feel impelled to render 
glory to the supreme Artist? When dark cold 
fogs rest upon our valleys at the decline of au- 
tumn, it only needs sometimes to climb the moun- 
tain-side, in order to issue all at once from the 


NATURE. 187 


gloomy region, and see the chain of high peaks, 
resplendent with light, mark themselves out upon 
a sky of incomparable blue. Often have I given 
myself the delight of this grand spectacle, and 
always at such a time my heart has uttered spon- 
taneously from its depths that hymn of adoration : 


Tout l’ univers est plein de sa magnificence. 
Qu’ on I’ adore, ce Dieu, qu’ on I’ invoque a jamais! * 


Such is, in the presence of nature, the sponta- 
neous movement of the heart and of the reason. 
But a false wisdom obscures these clear verities 
by clouds of sophisms. When your heart feels 
impelled to render glory to God, there is danger 
lest importunate thoughts rise in your mind and 
counteract the impulse of your adoration. Per- 
haps you have heard it said, perhaps you have 
read, that the accents of spiritual song, those 
echoes, growing ever weaker, of by-gone ages, 
are no longer heard by a mind enlightened by 
modern science. I should wish to deliver you 
from this painful doubt. I should wish to pro- 
tect you from the fascinations of a false science. I 
should wish that in the view of nature, even those 


* The whole universe is full of His magnificence. 
May this God be adored and invoked for ever! 


TOS =< LECTURE IV. 


who have as yet no wish to adore, with St. Paul, 
Him whose invisible perfections are clearly seen 
when we contemplate His works, may at least 
feel: themselves free to admire, with Socrates, 
“the supreme God who maintains the works of 
creation in the flower of youth and in a vigor 
ever new.” Let us examine a few of the preju- ° 
dices which it is sought to disseminate, in order 
to deprive of their force the reasonings of New- 
ton, and to turn us from the opinions of Kepler. 
It is said that science leads away from God, 
and that faith continues to be the lot only of the 
ignorant. Listen on this head first of all to the 
Italian Franchi. “The class of society in which 
infidels and sceptics especially abound is that of 
savants and men of letters, — men, in short, who 
have gone through studies, in the course of which 
they have certainly become acquainted with the 
famous demonstrations of the existence of God. 
But no sooner have they examined them with 
their own eyes, and submitted them to the crite- 
rion of their own-judgment, than these demon- 
strations no longer demonstrate anything; these 
reasonings turn out to be only paralogisms.” * 
Here we have the thesis in its general form: to 


* Le Rationalisme, page 19. 


NATURE. 189 


become an infidel or a sceptic, it is enough to be 
a well educated man. The German Biichner will 
now show us the application of this notion to the 
special study of nature. “At this day, our hardest 
laborers in the sciences, our most indefatigable stu- 
dents of nature, profess materialistic sentiments.” * 
The same tendencies are often manifested among 
French writers. The author of a recent astro- 
nomical treatise, for example, draws a veil of 
deceitful words over the profound faith of Kep- 
ler, and takes evident pleasure in throwing into 
relief the tokens of sympathy bestowed unfortu- 
nately by the learned Laplace upon atheism.+ 
Here then we have open attempts to found a prej- 
udice against religion on the authority of science ; 
and these attempts disturb the minds of not a few. 
I ask two questions on this head. Is it true, in 
fact, that modern naturalists are generally irreli- 
gious? Is it possible that the science of nature, 
rightly considered, should lead to atheism? t 


* Force et Matiére, page 262. 

+ Les Mondes Causeries astronomiques by Guillemin; see 
p- 122 (3rd edition), where Kepler is described as an intelli- 
gence “‘ penetrated by a profound faith in nature and exalted 
by a noble pride.” See also pages 327 and 336. 

{ The question discussed in these pages must not be con- 
founded with that of the relations between the science of 


Igo LECTURE IV. 


Let us begin with the question of fact; and first 
of all let us settle clearly the bearing and object 
of this discussion. I wish to destroy a prejudice, 
and not to create one. I am not proposing to 
you to take the votes of savants, in order to know 
whether God exists. No. Though all the uni- 
versities in Europe should unite to vote it dark at 
mid-day, I should not cease on that account to 
believe in the sun, and that, Gentlemen, in 
common with you all, and with the mass of my 
fellow-men. I have instituted a sort of inquiry 
in order to ascertain whether modern naturalists 
have in general been led to atheistical sentiments, 
as some would have us believe. In appealing to 
the recollections of my own earlier studies and 
subsequent reading, I have marked the names of 
the men best,known in the various sciences, and 
I have inquired what religious opinions they may 


nature and the documents of revelation. Whether nature can 
be explained without God is one question. Whether geology 
is in accordance with the language of the book of Genesis is 
another question, as regards both its nature and its impor- 
tance. This latter subject does not come within the scope of 
these lectures. I will merely call attention to the fact, that if 
nature and the sacred text are fixed elements, this is not the 
case with the interpretations of theologians, and the results of 
geology. It is difficult to pronounce upon the exact relation 
of two quantities more or less indeterminate. 


NATURE. Igo! 


have publicly manifested. I will now give you 
briefly the result of my labor. 

I have left astronomy out of the question, con- 
sidering that, notwithstanding the great notoriety 
of Laplace, we have in Kepler and Newton a 
weight of authority sufficient to counterbalance 
that which it is desired to connect with his name. 
Descending to the earth, we encounter first of all 
the general science of our globe, or geography. 
In this order of studies a German, Ritter, enjoys 
an incontestable preeminence. He is called, even 
in France, the “creator of scientific geography.” 
Scientific geography rests for support on nearly 
all the sciences: it proceeds from the general 
results of chemistry, physics, and geology. Had 
then the vast knowledge of Ritter turned him 
away from God? I had read somewhere* that 
he was one of those savants who have best real- 
ized the union of science and faith. One of my 
friends who was personally acquainted with him — 
has described him to me, not only as a man who 
adored the Creator in the view of the creation, 
but as an amiable and zealous Christian, who 
exerted himself to communicate to others his own 
convictions. 


* In the writings of M. de Rougemont, if I am not mistaken. 


Ig2 LECTURE IV. 


From the general study of the globe, let us 
pass to that of the organized beings which people 
its surface. Does botany teach the human mind 
to dispense with God? Let us listen to Linnzus. 
I open the System of Vature,* and on the reverse 
of the title-page I read: “O Lord, how manifold 
are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them 
all: the earth is full of Thy riches.” f I turn 
over a few leaves, and I meet with a table which 
comprises, under the title, Ampzre of ature, the 
general classification of beings. The commence- 
ment is as follows: “Eternal God, all-wise and 
almighty! I have seen Him as it were pass 
before me, and I remained confounded. Ihave 
discovered some traces of His footsteps in the 
works of the creation; and in those works, even. 
in the least, even in those which seem most 
insignificant, what might! what. wisdom! what 
inexplicable perfection !— If thou call Him Des- 
tiny, thou art not mistaken, it is He upon whom 
all depends. If thou call Him /Vature, thou art 
not mistaken, it is He from whom all takes its 
origin. If thou call Him Providence, thou 
speakest truly ; it is by His counsel that the uni- 
verse subsists.” Another great naturalist, George 


* Systema nature. t Ps, ‘civ. 24s 


NATURE. 193 


Cuvier, takes care to point out that “ Linnzus 
used to seize with marked pleasure the numerous 
occasions which natural history offered him of 
making known the wisdom of Providence.” * 
Thus modern botany was founded in a spirit ot 
piety. » Has ityat:a later period, made any dis- 
coveries calculated to efface from the life of vege- 
tables the marks of Divine intelligence? Allow 
me to introduce here a personal souvenir. I 
received lessons in my youth from an old man, 
who, having once been the teacher of De Can- 
dolle, remained his friend. By a rather strange 
academical arrangement, M. Vaucher found him- 
self set to teach us— not botany, for which he 
possessed both taste and genius, t but a science 
of which he knew but little, and which he liked 
still less. So it came to pass that a good part of 
the hour of lecture was often filled up with familiar 
conversations. These conversations took us far 
away from church history, which we were sup- 
posed to be learning. The misplaced botanist 
reverted, by a natural impulse, to his much-loved 


* Biographie untverselle. 

+ A. P. de Candolle, by A. de la Rive, pp. 12 and 13. 

{ M. Vaucher’s principal title to scientific distinction is his 
Histoire des conferves d’ eau douce, Gentve, an x1 (1803), 4°. 


13 


194 LECTURE IV. 


science; and I have seen him shed tears of tender 
emotion, in his Professor’s chair, as he spoke to 
us of the God who made the primrose of the 
spring, and concealed the violet under the hedge 
by the wayside. ‘Therefore is the recollection of 
that old man not only living in my memory, but 
also dear to my heart. Still he was a savant, an 
enthusiastic naturalist; and, in the broad light of 
the nineteenth century, he felt and spoke like 
Linneus. 

Let us pass to the study of animals. I had the 
Wish, some years ago, to procure the best of 
modern treatises upon physiology. I was directed 
to the work of Professor Miller, of Berlin. This 
book has not lost its value, — for, this very morn- 
ing, a student of our faculty of sciences came to 
me to borrow it, by the advice of his masters. 
Muller was a great physiologist, and he made an 
open profession of the Christian religion. Have 
we not the right to conclude that he believed in 
God? In France, I could cite more than one 
name in support of my thesis; I confine myself 
to a single fact. The attention of the scientific 
world has very recently been occupied with the 
discoveries of M. Pasteur. M. Pasteur has ascer- 
tained that the decomposition of organized bodies, 


NATURE. 195 


after death, is effected by the action of small 
animals almost imperceptible, the germs of which 
the larger animals carry in themselves, as living 
preparatives for their interment. The design of 
Providence reveals itself to his understanding, and 
he writes: ‘The immediate elements of living 
bodies would be in a manner indestructible, if 
from the beings which God has created were 
taken away the smallest, and, in appearance, the 
mostuseless. Life would thus become impossible, 
because the return to the atmosphere and to the 
mineral kingdom of all that has ceased to live 
would be all at once suspended.” * In other 
words: I have studied facts hitherto incompletely 
observed, and my study has revealed to me a new 
manifestation of that Divine wisdom of which the 
universe bears the impression. 

England possesses a naturalist of the first order, 
whom his fellow-countrymen take a pleasure in 
comparing to George Cuvier — Professor Owen. 
This savant lectured, a few months ago, before a 
numerous auditory, on the relations of religion 
and natural science.t He is fully possessed of 


* Comptes rendus de V Académie des Sciences of 20 April, 
1863, page 738. 
+ Exeter Hall Lectures — The Power of God tn His Animal 


196 LECTURE IV. 


all the information which the times afford,—1is 
not ignorant of modern discoveries, —is, in fact, 
one of the princes of contemporary science. 
Well, Gentlemen, Mr. Owen repeats, with refer- 
ence to animals, what Newton was led to say by 
his contemplation of the heavens, and Linneeus 
by his study of the plants. He is not afraid to 
admire with Galen the marvellous wisdom which 
presided over the organization of living bodies. 
His discourse is entitled, Zhe Power of God in 
His Animal Creation. The more we understand, 
he says, the more we admire, the more we adore. 
He pauses in view of the marvellous productions 
of nature, beside which the most delicate works 
of human industry appear, beneath the micro- 
scope, but coarse, rough hewings; he compares 
our most highly finished machines to the living 
machines made by the hand of God, and infers 
that, not to discern intelligence in the relation of 
means to ends, necessarily implies in the mind a 
defect similar to that of eyes which are unable to 


Creation, pamphlet in 12mo. This remarkable lecture con- 
tains a twofold protest — against the blindness of those savants 
who fail to recognize the presence of God in nature; and 
against the pretensions of those theologians who attack the 
certain results of the study of nature, relying upon texts more 
or less accurately interpreted. . 


NATURE. 197 


distinguish colors. Mr. Owen declares that such 
a state of mind and feeling in a naturalist may 
provoke blame from some and pity from others, 
and remains for him, so far as he is concerned, 
absolutely incomprehensible. 

Again, do the most learned chemists find in the 
study of the elements of matter a revelation of 
atheism? M. Liebig, I have been told, is one of 
the first chemists of our epoch. He believed he 
had discovered an application of chemistry to 
agriculture, the effect of which would be to fur- 
nish a remedy to the exhaustion of the soil. His 
discovery turned out false, and a more attentive 
study of his subject led him to ascertain that the 
object which he was pursuing was actually rea- 
lized by Divine Providence in a way of which he 
had had no suspicion. ‘The following is his own 
account of this, published in 1862: “ After having 
submitted all the facts to a new and very search- 
ing examination, I discovered the cause of my 
error. I had sinned against the wisdom of the 
Creator, and I had received my just punishment. 
I was wishing to perfect His work, and, in my 
blindness, I thought that in the admirable chain 
of laws which preside over life at the surface of 
the earth, and maintain it ever in freshness, there 


198 LECTURE Iv. 


was wanting a link which I, feeble and impotent 
worm, was to supply. Provision had been made 
for this beforehand, but in a way so wonderful, 
that the possibility of such a law had not so much 
as dawned upon the human understanding.” * 
Here is a confession very noble in its humility ; 
and to this chemist, who thus renders glory to 
God, no one of his colleagues could say: “If you 
had as much science as we, you would say no 
more about the wisdom of the Creator.” 

Let us pass on to natural philosophers. I have 
taken a special interest in this part of my inquiry, 
because I had read in the productions of a literary 
man of Paris, that modern physics have placed 
those at fault who defend the doctrine of the living 
and true God. I inquired accordingly of a man, 
very well able to give me the information, whether 
there exists in Europe a natural philosopher hold- 
ing a position of quite exceptional distinction. I 
received for reply: “ You may say boldly that, by 
the unanimous consent of men of science, Mr. 
Faraday, in regard both to the greatness and 
range of his discoveries, is the first natural philo- 
sopher living.” After having thus made myself 


* Chemistry applied to Agriculture and to Physiology (in 
German). Seventh edition. Introd. page 69. 


NATURE. 199 


sure, therefore, on this point, I took the liberty of 
writing to Mr. Faraday the following letter : 


‘GENEVA, 30th October, 1863. 
‘Sr 
‘‘T have the intention of commencing 
ro) 


shortly, at Geneva, and for an auditory of men, a 
course of lectures designed to combat the manifestations 
of contemporary atheism. To this deplorable error [I 
desire to oppose faith in God, as it has been given to 
the world by the Gospel, faith in the Heavenly Father. 
‘“One of my lectures will be specially devoted to 
the removal of prejudices against religion which have 
their origin in natural science. It is said very often, 
and very boldly, that modern physics and modern 
chemistry demonstrate the unfounded character of 
religious beliefs. These theses are maintained at 
Geneva as elsewhere. I should wish to reply that 
natural science does not of itself turn men from God, 
and that without being able to give faith, it confirms 
the faith of those who believe: this I should wish to 
establish by citing names invested, in science, with 
an incontestable and solid renown. Will you, Sir, 
authorize me to make use of your name?” 7 


Mr. Faraday, in reply, sent me the following 
letter, dated 6th Nov. 1863. 


*¢ SIR 
y] 
...** You have a full right to make use 


of my name: for although I generally avoid mixing 
up things sacred and things profane, I have, on one 


200 LECTURE IV. 


occasion, written and published a passage which 
accords to you this right, and which I maintain. I 
send you a copy of it. I hope you will find nothing 
in any other part of my researches, to contradict or 
weaken in any way whatever the sense of this passage. 

‘““T beg you to transmit my best remembrances to 
my friend M. de la Rive...... uf 


The passage thus indicated establishes a line of 
demarcation, very strongly (perhaps too strongly ) 
drawn between researches of the reason and the 
domain of religious truth, and contains a profes- 
sion of positive faith in Revelation. The author 
affirms that he has never recognized any incom- 
patibility between science and faith, and makes 
the following declaration: “Even in earthly mat- 
ters I reckon that ‘the invisible things of God 
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, 
being understood by the things that are made, 
even his eternal power and Godhead.’ ” 

A literary man of Paris declares to us that 
natural science leads away from God: one of the 
first savants of our time informs us that the scien- 
tific contemplation of nature renders the wisdom 
of God manifest. The question is one of fact. 
To whom shall we give our confidence? For my 
part, since it is natural philosophy which is in 


NATURE. 201 


question, I rank myself on the side of the Natural 
Philosopher. 

We will here terminate this review. It is time, 
however, which fails us, not subject-matter, for 
continuing it. You may have noticed that the 
name of no one of the savants of Switzerland 
figures in this inquiry. Nevertheless our country 
would have furnished a rich mine for my purpose. 
It contains (and it is one of its best privileges) a 
goodly number of savants, whom the observation 
of the facts of matter have not caused to forget 
the claims of mind, and who know how to raise 
their souls to the Author of the marvels which 
they study. You will understand therefore that 
it has not been from anxiety for my cause, but 
from a motive of discretion, that I have forborne 
to bring into this discussion the names of men in 
whom we have a near interest, and many of whom 
perhaps are present in this assembly. I will 
take advantage of Mr. Faraday’s letter to make 
a single exception, by naming M. de la Rive. 
More than once, and in public, we have heard 
him distinctly point out the place occupied by the 
sciences of mind in relation to the natural sciences, 
and render glory to the Creator. And I do not 
think that any one, in Switzerland or elsewhere, 


202 LECTURE IV. 


can, claim to speak with disdain, in the name of 
the physical sciences, of the religious convictions 
boldly professed by our learned fellow-country- 
man.* 

Recollect, Gentlemen, that I have not under- 
taken to prove the existence of God, by making 
appeal to the authority of men of science. All I 
have sought to do has been to destroy a prejudice. 
They tell us, and scream it at us, that the best 
naturalists become atheists. This is not true, as 
I think I have shown. There do exist atheists 
who cultivate the natural sciences,—no doubt of 
the fact. But even though half the whole number 
of naturalists were atheists, inasmuch as other 
naturalists, and those some of the greatest, find in 
their studies new motives to adoration, we are 
forced to the conclusion, that the true cause why 


* Since these words were spoken, M. de la Rive has been 
named an associated member of the Institute of France 
(Academy of Sciences), and thus elevated to the first of scien- 
tific dignities. It might be shown, I believe, that the greater 
number of the eight associates of the Academy of Sciences to 
be found in the world, make profession of their faith in God 
the Creator, the Almighty and Holy One. The silence which 
others may have preserved on the subject would, moreover, be 
no authority for concluding that they do not share in beliefs 
and sentiments which they have not had the occasion perhaps 
of publicly expressing. 


NATURE. 203 


these savants repudiate religion has nothing to do 
with their science. We shall come to be more 
strongly confirmed in this opinion, if we pass now 
from the question of fact to considerations of sound 
reason. : 

The weakness of the human mind leads it to 
forget the facts with which it is not occupied. All 
special culture of the intellect risks consequently 
the paralyzing a part of our faculties. Hegel, 
lost in abstractions, persuades himself that he will 
be able to construct by pure reasoning the history 
of nature and that of the human race. A geo- 
metrician, who no longer saw in the world any- 
thing but theorems and demonstrations, asked, 
after the representation of a dramatic masterpiece, 
“And what does that prove?” A physiologist 
absorbed in the study of sensible phenomena 
says: “Where is that soul they talk of? I have 
never seen it.” These are phenomena of the 
same order. This infirmity of the mind, which 
leads certain savants to think that the ordinary 
subject of their studies is everything, must not be 
imputed to science. A man accustomed to the 
exclusive observation of material phenomena, may 
become a materialist by the effect of his mental 
habits, and this really happens, in fact, in too 


204 LECTURE Iv. 


many instances; but the study in itself is not 
responsible for this result. Let us endeavor to 
prove this, by clearly defining the object of the 
natural sciences. 

When the matter of a phenomenon is given 
to us, the understanding proposes to itself three 
questions : 

1. How does the fact manifest itself? what is 
the mode of its existence? The answer gives us 
the law of the phenomenon. Bodies fall to the 
‘ground at a determined rate of speed: the deter- 
mination of this rate is the law of their fall. 

2. What is the real effective power which pro- 
duces the phenomenon? This is the inquiry after 
the cause. 

3. What is the intention which presided at the 
production of the phenomenon? ‘This is the 
search after the object, which philosophers call 
the final cause. 

What we call understanding or explaining a 
fact, is answering these three questions ; it is find- 
ing the law, the cause, the end. This analysis 
was made by Aristotle, and seems to have been 
well made. The science of nature, as it is con- 
ceived by the moderns, does not undertake to 
satisfy entirely the desires of the human mind. 


NATURE. 205 


It confines itself to the first question; it classes 
phenomena; it then seeks their law; arrived at 
this, it stops. The cause and design of things 
remain out of the sphere of its investigations ; the 
question of God therefore continues foreign to it. 
A story is told that when Buonaparte expressed 
his astonishment that the Marquis de la Place 
could have written a large book on the system of 
the universe, without making any mention of the 
Creator, the learned astronomer replied to his 
sovereign: “Sire, I had no need of that hypo- 
thesis.” The answer is admissible if we regard 
only the science of nature. An astronomer has 
no need of God in order to follow out the series of 
his calculations, and compare their results with 
the course of the stars; a chemist has no need of 
God in order to ascertain the: simple elements 
combined in composite bodies; a natural philo- 
sopher has no need of God in order to determine 
the laws of waves of sound or of electric currents. 
The science of nature does not demonstrate the 
existence of God; still less can it deny His exist- 
ence. ‘lo deny God, it would be necessary for 
science to demonstrate that there is no order, and 
consequently no cause of the order to discover ;_ 
for when we point out the harmony of the uni- 


206 LECTURE IV. 


verse, we manifestly prepare a basis for the 
argument which, from the intelligence recognized 
in the phenomena, will infer the intelligence of 
the Power which governs them. To prove that 
there is no order would be to prove that there is 
no science. For any one who well understands 
the value of terms, the words athezstical science 
contain a contradiction; they signify science 
which proves that there is no science. 

Such, Gentlemen, is the real state of the ques- 
- tion. Our savants, when they remain faithful to 
their method, seek to determine the laws of phe- 
nomena, and do not occupy themselves either 
with the First Cause of nature, or with its general 
object; they leave the question of God on one 
side. Whence come then the negations of natu- 
ralists? They arise in this way: those savants 
who succeed in strictly confining themselves with- 
in the limits of their science are rare exceptions. 
Almost always the man introduces his thoughts 
into the work of the savant, and the results of his 
study appear to him religious or irreligious, ac- 
cording to his views of religion. Newton ends 
his book with a hymn to the Creator; but it is 
not the mathematical principles of nature which 
have revealed to him the Sovereign God. He 


NATURE. 207 


perceives the rays of His glory because he be- 
lieves in Him. In the same way, the atheist 
thinks that his researches disprove the existence 
of God, because God is veiled from his soul. In 
both cases it is a doctrine foreign to pure natural 
science which gives a color to its results. Self- 
deception is very common in this matter, and in 
both directions. The religious mind does not un- 
derstand how it is possible to contemplate the uni- 
verse, and not see inscribed upon it distinctly the 
name of its Author; and the intrusion of atheism 
into the sciences of observation is veiled beneath 
confusions of ideas which it is of importance for 
us to dissipate. 

Modern science, as we have said, stops at laws, 
without troubling itself with causes. The laws 
which determine the series of facts as they offer 
themselves to observation express the mode of the 
action of the causes. There are here two ideas 
absolutely distinct: the power which acts, and 
the manner in which it acts. If the naturalist 
thinks that his science is everything, he must 
conclude that we can know nothing beyond the 
laws, and that an insuperable ignorance hides 
from our view the power of which they express 
the action. But he rarely succeeds in keeping this 


208 LECTURE Iv. 


position, and deceives his reason by confounding 
the laws which he discovers with the causes with 
which his mind is not able to dispense. He says 
first of all with Franchi, “the universe is what it 
is”; this is the general formula of all the truths 
of experience ; then he adds with the same author, 
“itis because it is.” This decawse means noth- 
ing, or means that laws are their own causes. 
If it is asked, What is the cause of the motion of 
the stars? they will give for answer the astronom- 
ical formule which express this motion, and will 
think that they have explained the phenomena by 
stating in what way they present themselves to 
observation. This is a curious example of that 
confusion of ideas which opens the door to athe- 
ism. 

An English naturalist, Mr. Darwin, has shown 
that in the successive life of animal generations, 
the favorable variations which are produced in 
the organization of a being are transmitted to its 
descendants and insure the perpetuity of its race, 
while the unpropitious variations disappear be- 
cause they entail the destruction of the races in 
which they are produced. He tells us: “This 
preservation of favorable variations and the rejec- 
tion of injurious variations, I call Natural Selec- 


NATURE. 209 


tion.” * What does the author understand by 
law? He answers: “the series of facts as it is 
known to us.” + Here we have the true defini- 
tion of law: it is the simple expression of the 
series of the facts; the cause remains to be sought 
for. I open the book in another part. The au- 
thor is speaking of the eye; and his doctrine is 
that the eye of the eagle was formed by the slow 
transformations of an extremely simple visual ap- 
paratus. There will have been then, in the 
development of animal existence, first of all a 
rudimentary eye, then an eye moderately well 
formed, and then the eye of the eagle, because 
the favorable modifications of the organ of sight 
will have been preserved and increased in the 
course of ages. Such is the series of facts, such 
is the law; suppose we grant it. What is the 
cause? The optician makes our spectacles ; who 
made the eye of the eagle, by directing the slow 
transformations which at length produced it? 
Let us listen to the author: “ There exists an in- 
telligent power, and that intelligent power is nat- 

* On the Origin of Species, page 81. Fifth edition. 

t+ On the Origin of Sfecies. The text is— ‘‘the xecessary 
series of facts; ” but it would be to do the writer wrong to im- 


pute to him the idea that observation reveals to us what is 
necessary, in the philosophical import of the word. 


14 


210 LECTURE IV. 


ural selection, constantly on the watch for every - 
alteration accidentally produced in the transpar- 
ent layers, in order carefully to choose such of 
those alterations as may tend to produce a more 
distinct image. ... - Natural selection will 
choose with infallible skill each new improve- 
ment effected.” * Natural selection is a law; a 
law is the series of facts; it seems that we must 
seek for the power which directs this series of 
facts; but, lo, the series of facts itself is trans- 
formed into a power—into an intelligent power 
— into a power which chooses with infallible skill ! 
The confusion of ideas is complete. The mind 
is on a wrong scent; it concludes that the law 
explains everything, and has itself no need of 
explanation. The idea of the cause CISAD DR 
and, as Auguste Comte expresses it, -“\ science 
conducts God with honor to -its frontiers, thank- 
ing Him for His provisional services. ft This is 
not perhaps the idea of Mr. Darwin, but it is at 
any rate the idea of some of his disciples, as we 
shall see by-and-by. 

Thus the idea of the cause is kept out of sight. 
Let us now see the fate to which are consigned 


* On the Origin of Species. 
+ Caro, L’ Idée de Dieu, page 47. 


NATURE. Aue 


those other requirements of the reason — the eter- 
nal and the infinite. I take up Dr. Biichner’s 
book, and Tread: “We are incapable of forming 
an idea, even approximately, of the e¢ernal and 
the zzjinzte, because our mind, shut up within the 
limits of the senses, in what regards space and 
time, is quite unable to pass these bounds so as 
to rise to the height of these ideas.” I follow the 
text, and thirteen lines further on, in the same 
page, I read, “Therefore matter and space must 
be eternal.” * Observe well the use which this 
writer makes of the great ideas of the reason. 
Is it desired to employ them to prove the exist- 
ence of God? He will have nothing to do with 
them. Is the object in question to deny God’s 
existence? He makes use of them; and all in 
the same page. This is coarse work, no doubt, 
and Dr. Biichner damages his cause; but, under 
forms, often more subtle and more intelligent, the 
same sophism turns up in all systems of material- 
ism.f It is affirmed that we have no real idea 


* Force et Matiére, page 181. 

+ The Biichner proceeding is found again pretty exactly in 
Les Mondes of M. Amédée Guillemin. ‘This writer affirms 
(page 60 of the third edition) that science does not approach 
metaphysical questions; and asserts in the same page, ten 
lines further on, that astronomical experience leads our reason 
to the idea of the eternity of the universe. After that, he may 
laugh, if he will, at lovers of the absolute. 


212 LECTURE IV. 


of the infinite, and it is sought at the same time 
to beguile the need which reason feels of this idea 
by applying it to matter. | 

Pray do not suppose that I am here attacking 
the natural sciences, in the interest of metaphys- 
‘cs. I am not attacking but defending them. f 
am endeavoring, as far as in me lies, to avenge 
them from the outrages which are offered to them 
by materialism, while it seeks to cover with their 
noble mantle its own shameful nakedness. Nat- 
uralists on the one hand, and theologians and 
philosophers on the other, are too often at war. 
They are men, and as nothing human is foreign 
to them, they are not unacquainted either with 
proud prepossessions, or with jealous rivalries, or 
with the miserable struggles of envy: with these 
things the passions are chargeable. But never 
render the sciences responsible for the errors of 
their representatives. Take away human frail- 
ties, and you shall see harmony established ; the 
study of matter will thus agree with the study of 
mind, and the idea of nature with the idea of God. 
You will see all the sciences rise together in a 
majestic harmony. I say rise, and I say it ad- 
visedly ; for the sciences also form a part of that 
golden chain which should unite the earth to 


heaven. 


NATURE. 218 


The assertion that the science of nature leads 
away from God, expresses nothing but a preju- 
dice. It is not true in fact, and on principles of 
right reason it is impossible: the demonstration 
is complete. Atheism is a philosophy for which 
the natural sciences are in no degree responsible. 
We shall not undertake here the general discus- 
sion of this philosophy. Let us confine ourselves 
to the examination of the pretence which it puts 
forward to find a new support in the results of 
modern science. 

The nineteenth century bestows particular at- 
tention upon history, and it is not only to the 
annals of the human race that it directs its inves- 
tigations. Geology and paleontology dive into 
the bowels of the earth in order to ask of the 
ground which carries us testimony as to what it 
carried of old. Astronomy goes yet further. It 
endeavors to conjecture what was the condition 
of our planet before the appearance of the first. 
living being. It remarks that the sun is not fixed 
in the heavens, and that our earth does not twice 
travel over the same line in its annual revolu- 
tions. It appears that stars are seen in course of 
formation; it is suspected that some have wholly 
disappeared. Nature is not fixed, but is under- 


214 LECTURE IV. 


going modifications — lives, in fact. The actual 
state of the universe is but a momentary phase in 
a development which supposes thousands of ages 
in the past, and seems to presage thousands 
more in the future. These conceptions are the 
result of solid and incontestable discoveries. 
They have disturbed men’s minds, but what is 
their legitifnate import? Why, Newton’s argu- 
ment receives new force from them. From a 
blind metaphysical necessity, everywhere and 
always the same, said this great man, no varia- 
tion could spring. The more it is demonstrated 
that the universe is in course of development 
and modification, the more clearly comes into 
view the necessity of the supreme Power which 
is the cause of its modifications, and of the In- 
finite intelligence which is directing them to their 
end. This appears to be solid reasoning, and 
nevertheless atheism has endeavored to strike its 
roots in the ground of modern discoveries. It 
does this in the following way. 

If the universe as it is, with the infinite variety 
of beings which people it and the marvellous 
relations which connect these beings mutually 
together, could be shown to have sprung all at 
once from nothing, or to have emerged from 


NATURE. 215 


chaos at a given instant, in its full harmony, the 
boldest mind would not venture to regard this 
miracle of intelligence as the product of chance. 
But modern science, it is said, no longer admits of 
this simple explanation of things: ‘‘ God created 
the heavens and the earth.” This phrase is 
henceforward admissible only in the catechism. 
We know that all has been produced by slow 
degrees, starting from weak and shapeless rudi- 
ments. This grand marvel of the universe was 
not made all of one piece. Man is of recent 
date ; quadrupeds at a certain epoch did not exist ; 
animals had a beginning, and plants also. ‘The 
earth was once bare. Formerly, it was perhaps 
only a gaseous mass revolving in space. In 
course of time, matter was condensed ; in time it 
was organized in living cellules; in time these 
cellules became shapeless animals; in time these 
animals were perfected.. Time appears therefore 
to be the “universal factor”; and for the ancient 
formula, “the universe is the creation of God,” 
we are able to substitute this other formula, the 
result, most assuredly, of modern science, “the 
universe is the work of time.” 

In all this, Gentlemen, I have invented nothing. 
All I have done has been to put into form the 


216 LECTURE Iv. 


theory, the elements of which I have met with in 
various contemporary productions.* They be- 
wilder us by heaping ages upon ages, and in 
order to explain nature they substitute the idea of 
time for the ideas of power and intelligence. 
They seem to suppose that what is produced little 
by little is sufficiently explained by the slowness 
of its formation. 

These aberrations of thought have recently been 
manifested in a striking manner on the occasion 
of the publication of Mr. Darwin’s book. ‘This 
naturalist has given his attention to the transfor- 
mation of organized types. He has discovered 
that types vary more than is generally supposed ; 
and that we probably take simple varieties for 
distinct species. His discoveries will, I suppose, 
leave traces strongly marked enough in the history 
of science. But Mr. Darwin is not merely an 
observer ; he is a theorist, dominated evidently by 
a disposition to systematize. Now minds of this 
character, which render, no doubt, signal services 
to the sciences of observation, are all like Pyr- 
rhus, who, gazing on Andromache as he walked 
by her side, 


Still quaffed bewildering pleasure from the view.t 


* See in particular the Revue des Deux Mondes, passim. 
+ S’enivrait en marchant du plaisir de la voir. 


NATURE. 214 


Their theory is their lady-love; they love it 
passionately, and passionate love always strongly 
excites the imagination. Mr. Darwin then has 
put forth the hypothesis, that not only all animals, 
but all vegetables too, might have come from one 
and the same primitive type, from one and the 
same living cellule. ‘This supposes that there 
was at the beginning but one single species, an 
elementary and very slightly defined organization, 
from which all that lives descended in the way 
of regular generation. The oak and the wild 
boar which eats its acorn, the cat and the flea 
which lodges in its fur, have common ancestors. 
The family, originally one, has been divided 
under the influence of soil, climate, food, mois- 
ture, mode of life, and by virtue of the natural 
selection which has preserved and accumulated 
the favorable modifications which have occured 
in the organism. Mr. Darwin, I repeat, appears 
to me a man strongly disposed to systematize, but | 
‘I do not on this account conclude that he is mis- 
taken. The question is, what opinion we must 
form of his doctrine on principles.of experimental 
science? Professor Owen* does not appear to 
allow it any value; M. Agassiz does not admit it 


* See the lecture above mentioned. 


218 LECTURE IV. 


at all; * and, without crossing the ocean, we 
might consult M. Pictet,j who would reply, that 
judging by the experimental data which we have 
at present, this doctrine is an hypothesis not con- 
firmed by the observation of facts. We will leave 
this controversy to naturalists. What will remain 
eventually in their science of the system under 
discussion? The answer belongs to the future 
enlightened by experience and by the employ- 
ment of a sage induction. What is the relation 
existing between these systematic views and the 
question of the Creator? This is the sole object 
of our study. 

The opinions of the English naturalist are very 
dubious as to the vital questions of religious phi- 
losophy. [| have pointed out to you the confusion 
of his ideas in the use which he makes of natural 
selection. In the text of his book, he admits, in 
the special case of life, the intervention of the 
Creator for the production of the first living being, 
and he does not speak of man, except in an inci- 
dental sentence, which only attentive readers will 
take any notice of. If we do not take the liberty 


* Lettres sur les Etats-Unis a’? Amérique, by Lieutenant- 
Colonel Ferri Pisani, page 400. — Letter of 25 Sept. 1861. 

+ On the origin of species, in the Archives des sciences de 
la Bibliotheque universelle, March, 1860. 


ee as 


—— 


 ———————— ee OT 


NATURE. 219 


to look a little below the surface, we must say 
that Mr. Darwin remains on the ground of natural 
history. ‘Therefore I spoke to you of the aberra- 
tions of philosophic thought which have been 
produced on the occasion of his book. These 
aberrations are the following : 

First of all, natural selection has been taken for 
a cause, or rather as dispensing with the necessity 
for a cause, by means of a confusion of ideas for 
which the author is responsible. ‘The system has 
therefore been understood as implying, that or- 
ganized beings were formed without plan, with- 
out design, by the mere action of material causes, 
and as the result of modifications casual at first, 
and slowly accumulated. Divine intelligence and 
creative power thus seemed to be disappearing 
from the organization of the universe, and to dis- 
appear especially before the lapse of time and the 
infinitely slow action of physical causes. But 
while the system was taking wing, and soaring 
aloft, lo! the Creator at the commencement of 
things, and man conceived as a distinct being at 
the highest point of nature, have risen up as two 
idols and paralyzed its flight. To Mr. Darwin, 
however, have speedily succeeded disciples com- 
promising their master’s authority, and addressing 


220 LECTURE) ZV. 


him in some such language as this: ° You, our 
master, do not fully follow out your own opinions ; 
you strain off enats,* and swallow camels. It is 
not more difficult to see in the living cellule a 
transformation of matter, and in man a transfor- 
mation of the monkey, than to point out in a 
sponge the ancestor of the horse. Cast down your 
idols, and confess that matter developed in course 
of time, under favorable circumstances, is the 
origin of all that is.” . Matter, time, circum- 
stances——these things have taken the place of 
God. | 

This, Gentlemen, is a philosophy, properly so 
called, which vainly pretends to find a support in 
the observation of facts. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 
the rival of Cuvier, set forth views analogous to 
those which Mr. Darwin has lately reproduced. 
But in his replies to the attacks which were made 
upon his system, he affirmed that his theory 
offered “one of the most glorious manifestations 
of creative power, and an additional motive for 
admiration, gratitude, and love.” f Two differ- 


* Vous coulez des moucherons. 

+ In his Principes de philosophic zoologique, a collection of ° 
answers made by Geoffroy, in the discussions of the Académie 
des Sciences, in 1830. 


NATURE. 221 


ent interpretations may therefore be given to the 
system. I wish to show you that these interpre- 
tations proceed in all cases from considerations 
external to the system. The system in itself, as 
a theory of natural history, could not in any way 
affect injuriously the great interests of spiritual 
truth. 

In order solidly to establish this assertion, I 
will suppose the hypotheses of the most advanced 
disciples of Mr. Darwin to have been verified by 
experimental science. I take for granted that it 
has been proved that all plants and all animals 
have descended, by way of regular generation, 
_ from living cellules originally similar; and that 
the material particles of the globe, at a given mo- 
ment, drew together to form these cellules. And 
now where do we stand? Will God hencefor- 
ward be a superfluous hypothesis? Do the athe- 
istical consequences which it is desired to draw 
from this doctrine proceed logically from it? Most 
certainly not! 

I observe first of all that there exists a great 
question relative to the beginning of things. 
Matter is perfected and organized in process of 
time — but whence comes matter itself? Is it also 
formed little by little in process of time? Does 


222 LECTURE IV. 


non-existence become existence little by little ? 
So it is said in the preface to the French transla- 
tion of Mr. Darwin’s book. But this appertains 
to high metaphysics; and I pass on. 

If time is the factor of all progress by a neces- 
sary law, this necessity must be everywhere the 
same. Have the elements of matter all the same 
age? If so, why have some followed the law of 
progress, andothers not?) Why has this mud and 
this coal remained mud and coal, age after age, 
while these other molecules have risen, in the 
hierarchy of the universe, to the dignity of life ? 
Why have these mollusks remained mollusks 
throughout the succession of their generations, 
while others, happily transformed, have gradu- 
ally mounted the steps of the ladder up to man? 
Whence comes this aristocracy of nature? Are 
the beings which we call inferior only the cadets 
of the universe, and are they too in their turn to 
mount all the steps of the ladder? Must we admit 
that there is going on the continual production, 
not only of living cellules which are beginning 
new series of generations, but also of new matter, 
which, setting out from the most rudimentary 
condition, is beginning the evolution which is to 
raise it into life? ‘They do not venture to put 


NATURE. 228 


forth theses of this nature, and, in order to account 
for the diversity of things, recourse is had to cir- 
cumstances. ‘The diversity of circumstances ex- 
plains the diversity of developments. But whence 
can come the variety of circumstances in a world 
where all is produced in the way of fatal neces- 
sity, and without the intervention of a will and 
an intelligence? This is the remark of Newton. 
Study carefully the systems of materialism: their 
authors declare that to have recourse to God in 
order to account for the universe is a puerile con- 
ception unworthy of science, because all explana- 
tion must be referred to fixed andimmutable laws ; 
and then you will be for ever surprising them in 
the very act of the adoration of cercumstances. 
Convenient deities these, which they summon to 
their aid in cases which they find embarrassing. 
But we will not insist on these preliminary con- 
siderations. We have allowed, for argument’s 
sake, that all organized beings have proceeded 
by means of generation from cellules presenting to 
sensible observation similar appearances. Natural 
history cannot prove, nor even attempt to prove, 
more. Let us transport ourselves, in thought, to 
the moment at which the highest points of the 
continents were for the first time emerging from 


224. LECTURE IV. 


the primitive ocean. We see, on the parts of the 
soil which are half-dried, and in certain conditions 
of heat and electricity, particles of matter draw 
together and form those rudiments of organism 
which are called living cellules. These cellules 
have the marvellous faculty of ‘self-propagation, 
and the faculty, not less marvellous, of transmit- 
ting to their posterity the favorable modifications 
which they have undergone. Generations suc- 
ceed one another; gradually they form separate 
branches. New characteristics show themselves ; 
the organisms become complicated, and becoming 
complicated they separate. The vegetable is 
distinguished from the animal; the plant which 
will become the palm-tree is distinguished from 
the oak which is in course of formation, and the 
ancestor of the future bird is already different 
from that of the fish. We follow up this great 
spectacle. The ages pass, they pass by thousands 
and by millions, they pass by tens of millions. 
We need not be stinting in our allowance of time ; 
our imagination will be tired of conceiving of it 
sooner than thought of supplying it. And at 
what shall we have arrived at last? At the uni- 
verse as it has been for some few thousands of 
years past; at the world with its vegetables of a 


eS 


ES 


NATURE. 225 


thousand forms, grouped by classes and series, 
with the families of animals, with the relations of 
animals to plants, with the unnumbered harmonies 
of nature. Let us choose out one particular, on 
which to fix our attention. Shall it be a she- 
roast 


Upstretched on fragrant cytisus to browse? 


This will suit our purpose, although the cytisus, 
unless I am mistaken, has no perfume except in 
M. de Lamartine’s verses. Let us fix our atten- 
tion on a cytisus with its yellow clusters hanging 
down, and the goat bending its pliant branches as 
it browses on the foliage. Here is a very small 
detail in the ample lap of nature. Let us come 
closer, and to help our ignorance, let us provide 
ourselves with a naturalist who will answer for us 
the questions suggested by this simple spectacle. 
And what have we now before us? The various 
relations of the animal’s organization to the vege- 
tables on which it feeds. In the organization 
and functions of these two living beings, in the 
equilibrium and movements of their frames, in the - 
circulation of sap and of blood, we have the appli- 
cation of the most secret laws of mechanism, of 
physics, and of chemistry. Then again, in the 

15 


226 | LECTURE IV. 


relations which the animal and the plant sustain 
with the ground which bears them, with the ‘air 
they breathe, with the sun which enlightens them, 
with heat and light, with the moisture of the air 
and its electricity — in all this we see the universal 
relations which connect all the various parts of 
the wide universe with each one of its minutest 
details. In this simple spectacle we have, in fact, 
reciprocal relations, the balance of things, the 
harmony which maintains the universal life — in- 
telligence, in short, in the organization of beings, 
in the characteristics which divide them, in the 
classes which unite them, in the relations of these 
- classes amongst themselves ; — wonders of intelli- 
gent design, of which the sciences we are so 
proud of are spelling out, letter by letter, line 
after line, the inexhaustible abysses: this is what 
we find everywhere. Let us now come back to 
our primitive cellules. 

All the living beings which people the surface 
of the globe are composed materially of some of 
the elements of the earth’s substance. The birth’ 
therefore of the first living beings could only offer 
to the view the bringing together of some of the 
elements of the soil; this is not the matter in ques- 
tion. The primitive cellules were to all appear- 


NATURE. 227 


ance alike. Weighed in scales, opened by the 
scalpel, placed beneath the microscope, they 
would have offered no appreciable difference; I 
grant it: it is the supposition we have agreed to 
make., Therefore they were identical, say you. 
I deny it, and here is my proof: If the cellules 
had been identical, they would not have given, 
in the successive development of their generations, 
the diverse beings which people the world, and 
the relations which unite them. Alike to your 
eyes, the cellules differed therefore by a concealed 
property which their development brought to light. 
You have told me as a matter of history how the 
organization of the world was manifested by slow 
degrees; you have given me no account of the 
cause of that organization. 

It is said in reply: “We do know the origin of 
those developments which you refer to a supposed 
intelligence. The living beings are transformed 
by the action of food, climate, soil, mode of life. 
They experience slight variations in the first in- 
stance; but these variations are established, and 
increase; and where you see a plan, types, and 
species, there is really only the result of modifi- 
cations slowly accumulated. Nature disposes of 
periods which have no limit, and everything has 


228 LECTURE IV. 


come at its proper time, in the course of ages.” 
They are always proposing to us to accept of time 
as the substitute for intelligence. I am tempted 


to say with Alcestis : 


Time in this matter, Sirs, has nought to do,* 


You know what intelligence is; you know it by 
knowing yourself. Is there, or is there not, intel- 
ligence in the universe? Allow me to reproduce 
some old questions: If a machine implies intel- 
ligence, does the universe imply none? If a 
telescope implies intelligence in the optician, does 
the eye imply none in its author? The produc- 
- tion of a variety of the camelia, or of a new 
breed of swine, demands of the gardener and the 
breeder the patient and prolonged employment of 
the understanding ; and are our entire flora and 
fauna to be explained without any intervention of 
mind? And if there is intelligence in the uni- 
verse, is this intelligence a chemical result of the 
combination of molecules ? is it a physical result 
of caloric or of electricity? It is in vain that you 
give to material agents an unlimited time; what 
has time to do here? Whether the world as it 
now exists arose out of nothing, or whether it was 


* Voyons, Messieurs, le temps ne fait rien a I’ affaire. 


Se 


NATURE. 229 


slowly formed during thousands of ages, the ques- 
tion remains the same. With matter and time, 
you will not succeed in creating intelligence ; this 
were an operation of transcendent alchemy utterly 
beyond our power. In the theory of slow causes, 
the adjective ends by devouring the substantive ; 
it seems that by dint of becoming slow the causes 
become superfluous. A breath of reason upsets, 
like a house of cards, the structures of this erring 
and misnamed science. Time has a relative 
meaning and value. We reckon duration as long 
or short, by taking human life as our measure. 
But they tell of insects which are born in the 
morning, arrive at mature age at mid-day, and 
only reach the evening if they are patriarchs of 
their race. . Is it not easy to conceive of beings 
organized for an existence such that our centuries 
would be moments with them, and centuries 
_ heaped together one of our hours? Suppose one 
of these beings to be contemplating our geological 
periods, and slow causes will to him appear rapid 
causes, and the question of intelligence will be 
the same for him as for us. 

It is manifest that the attempt is being made to 
restore the worship of the old Chronos, to whom 
the ancients had erected temples. Let us look 


230 LECTURE IV. 


the idol in the face. Time appears at first to our 
imagination as the great destroyer. He is armed 
with a scythe, and passes gaunt and bald over 
the ruins of all that has lived. When he lifts up 


his great voice and cries — 


Mighty nations famed in story 
Into darkness I have hurled, — 

Gone their myriads and their glory 
(Lo! ye follow) from the world: 

My dark shade for ever covers 
Stars I quenched as on they rolled: — 


the beautiful and frightened girl in the song is not 
singular as she exclaims in her terror: 


Ah! we’re young, and we are lovers, 
Spare us, Reaper gaunt and old!* 


Such is the first impression which time makes 
upon us. But birth succeeds to death. From an 
inexhaustible spring, nature sends gushing forth 
new products and new developments. Youth full 
of hope trips lightly over the ground, without a 


* Sur cent premiers peuples célébres, 
J ai plongé cent peuples fameux, 
Dans un abime de ténebres 
Ou vous disparaitrez comme eux. 
J ai couvert d’ une ombre ¢ternelle 
Des astres éteints dans leur cours. 
— Ah! par pitié, lui dit ma belle, 
Vieillard, épargnez nos amours! 


io gal 


NATURE. Bat 


thought that the ground it treads on is the vast 
cemetery of all past generations. If we fix our 
thoughts on the permanence of life and the mani- 
festations of progress, time appears to us as the 
great producer. Destroyer of all that is, producer 
of all that is to be, time has thus a double form. 
It is a mysterious tide, ever rising and ever reced- 
ing; it is the power of death, and it is the power 
of life. All this, Gentlemen, is for the imagina- 
tion. In the view of a calm reason, time is the 
simply negative condition of all development, as 
space is the negative condition of all motion. 
Just as without bodies and forces infinite space 
could not produce any motion; so, without the 
action of causes, ages heaped on ages could 
neither produce nor destroy a single atom of 
matter, or a single element of intelligence. Time 
is the scene of life and of death; it neither causes 
to be born, nor to die. 

The struggle which we are now maintaining 
against the philosophers of matter is as ancient as 
science, and was going on, nearly in the same 
terms, more than two thousand three hundred 
years ago. About five hundred years before the 
Christian era was born at Clazomene, a city of 
Ionia, the son of Eubulus, who was to become 


232 LECTURE IV. 


famous by the name of Anaxagoras. He fixed 
his abode at Athens, and the Athenian people 
gave him a glorious surname, — they called him 
Intelligence. On what account? There were 
taught at that time doctrines which explained the 
world by the transformations of matter rising 
progressively to life and thought, without the 
intervention of a mind. The philosopher Anaxi- 
mander gave out that the first animals had their 
origin in the watery element, and became modi- 
fied by living in drier regions, so that man was 
only a fish slowly transformed. “I am quite 
willing to grant it,” replied Anaxagoras ; “ but for 
your transformations there must be a transform- 
ing principle. Matter is the material of the world, 
no doubt; but it could not produce universal order 
except as ruled by intelligence.” The Athenians 
admired this discovery. For us, Gentlemen, the 
discovery has been made a long while. Let us 
not then be talking in this discussion about mod- 
ern science and the lights of the age. Our natu- 
ral history is much advanced as compared with 
that of the Greeks; but the vital question has not 
varied. Does nature manifest the intervention of 
a directing mind, or do we see in it only a fortu- 
itous aggregation of atoms? 


NATURE. 233 


Intelligence radiates from the face of nature, 
and it is in vain that men endeavor to veil its 
splendor. Nevertheless I consent to forget .all 
that has just been ‘said, in order to intrench my- 
self in an argument, which of itself is sufficient 
for the object we have in view to-day. Our ob- 
ject is to prove that material science does not 
contain the explanation of all the realities of the 
universe. Even though they had succeeded in 
persuading us that there is no intelligence in 
nature, it would still be necessary to explain the 
origin of that intelligence which is in us, and the 
existence of which cannot be disputed. Whence 
proceeds the mind which is in ourselves? 

Let us first of all give our attention to a strange 
contradiction. ‘Those savants who make of the 
human soul a simple manifestation of matter, are 
the same who wish to explain nature without the 
intervention of the Divine intelligence. In order 
to keep out of view the design which is displayed 
in the organization of the world, they take a 
pleasure in finding nature at fault, and in pointing 
out its imperfections. Still, they do not pretend - 
to be able to do better than nature; they would 
not undertake the responsibility of correcting the 
laws of life, and regulating the course of the sea- 


234 LECTURE IV. 


sons. They do not say, “ We could make a better 
world,” but “ We can imagine a world more per- 
fect than our own.” Now what is our answer? 
Simply this: “ You are right.” Nature is not the 
supreme perfection, and therefore we will not 
worship it. How admirable soever be the visible 
universe, we have the faculty of conceiving more 
and better. We understand that the atmosphere 
might be purified, so that the tempest should not 
engulf the ships, nor the thunderbolt produce the 
conflagration. We dream of mountain-heights 
more majestic than the loftiest summits of our Alps, 
of waters more transparent than the pure crystal 
of our lakes, of valleys fresher and more peaceful 
than the loveliest which hide among our hills. 
The spectacle of nature awakens in us the powers 
of thought, and the sentiment of beauty draws us 
on to the pursuit of an ideal which surpasses 
all realities. Nature is not perfect: let us be for- 
"ward to acknowledge it, and let us draw from the 
fact its legitimate consequence. The stream can- 
not rise higher than its source. If man conceives 
an ideal superior to nature, he is not himself 
the mere product of nature. By what strange 
contradiction is it affirmed at once that our spirit 
overpasses the bounds of all the realities which 


NATURE. 235 


encompass it, and that it has not a source more 
elevated than those realities? Listen to a thought 
of that weighty writer Montesquieu: * “‘l’hose 
who have said that a blind fatality has produced 
all the effects which we see in the world, have 
said a great absurdity ; for what greater absurdity 
than a blind fatality which should have produced 
intelligent beings?” Without restricting ourselves 
to this simple and solid argument, let us see how 
they will explain man by nature. For this end, 
we must examine the theory of the perfected mon- 
key, which, introduced to us by the lectures of 
Professor Vogt and the spirited rejoinders of M. de 
Rougemont, made a great noise as it descended a 
short time ago from the mountains of Neuchatel. + 
A celebrated orator said one day to an assembly 
of Frenchmen: “I am long, Gentlemen; but it is 
your own fault: it is your glory that I am re- 
counting.” Have not I the right to say to you: 
“Tam long, Gentlemen, but it is worth while to 
be so; it is our own dignity which is in ques- 
tion.” 

* Esprit des Lots, Bk. I. chap. 1. 

+ Legons sur 1 homme, by Carl Vogt (lectures delivered 
during the winter of 1862 - 1863, at Neuchatel and at Chaux-de- 


Fonds), 1 vol. 8vo. Paris, 1865. — ZL’ Homme et le Singe, by 
Frédéric de Rougemont, pamphlet, r2mo. Neuchatel, 1863. 


236 LECTURE Iv. 


Man is a perfected monkey! I have three pre- 
liminary observations to make before I proceed to 
the direct examination of this theory. 

In the first place, this definition transgresses 
the first and most essential rules of logic. We 
must always define what is unknown by what is 
known. This is an elementary principle. What 
aman is, I know. To think, to will, to-enjoy, to. 
hope, to fear, are functions of the mental life. 
These words answer to clear ideas, because those 
ideas result directly from our personal conscious- 
ness. But what is the soul of amonkey? The 
nature of animals is a mystery, one which is per- 
haps incapable of solution, and which, in all cases 
is wrapped in profound darkness, because the 
animal appears to us an intermediate link between 
the mechanism of nature and the functions of the 
spiritual life, which are the only two conceptions 
we have that are really clear and distinct. In 
taking the monkey therefore as our point of de- 
parture for the definition of man, we are defining 
what is clear by what is obscure. 

My second remark is this: If it is affirmed that 
there is but one species, including all the animals 
and man, so that man is only a monkey modified, 
and the monkey, in its turn, an inferior animal — 


NATURE. 2a 


modified; when once we have established the 
reality of man we arrive at this result: all animals 
whatsoever are only inferior developments of hu- 
manity, living foetuses which, without having 
come to their full term, have nevertheless the 
faculty of living and reproducing themselves. 
The animal then is an incomplete man; a theory 
which raises great difficulties, but which is more 
serious and more easy to understand than the 
doctrine which would have man to be a consum- 
mation of the monkey. 

In fact, —and this is my third observation, — 
when the theory which I am examining is adopted, 
it must be carried out to its consequences, and 
the bearing of it clearly seen. Man, it is said, is 
the consummation of the monkey. The monkey 
is an improvement upon some quadruped or 
other, and this quadruped is an improvement 
upon another, and so on. We must descend, in 
an inevitable logical series, to the most element- 
ary manifestations of life, and thence, finally, to 
matter. If it is not admitted that pure matter is 
a man ina state of torpor, it must be admitted that. 
man is a mélange of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, 
azote, phosphorus —a mélange which has been 
brought little by little to perfection. Such is the 


233 LECTURE IV. 


final inference from the doctrine which we are 
examining ; and there are theorists who deduce it 
clearly. Now what is it that goes on in the 
minds of these savants? When the object is to 
banish God from nature, the creative Intelligence 
is resolved into thousands of ages. When it is 
desired to get rid in man of the reality of mind, 
they seek to resolve the human intelligence into 
a long series of modifications which have caused — 
life to spring from matter, superior animals from 
simpler organisms, and man from the animal. 
Do not allow yourselves to be caught in this trap. 
Maintain firmly, that, whatever the degree of in- 
telligence, of will, of spiritual essence, which may 
exist in animals, if that element is really found in 
them, it demands a cause, and cannot, without 
an enormous confusion of ideas, be regarded as 
a mere perfecting of matter. In fact, a thing 
in perfecting itself, realizes continually more fully 
its own proper idea, and does not become another 
thing. A perfect monkey would be of all mon- 
keys the one which is most a monkey, and would 
not be aman. But let us leave the animals in 
the darkness in which they abide for our minds, 
and let us speak of what for us is less obscure. 
Our spiritual existence is a fact; it is of all facts 


NATURE. 239 


the one which is best known to us; it is the fact 
without which no other fact would exist for us. 
And whence proceeds our spirit? To this ques- 
tion, natural history has no answer. It is easy to 
see this, though we grant once again to natural 
history, when made the most of by our adversa- 
ries, all that it can pretend to claim. Suppose it 
proved, that in the historical development of na- 
ture, man has a monkey for his mother. I will 
grant it, and grant it quite seriously in order to 
ascertain what will be the influence of this hy- 
pothesis upon the problem on which we are en- 
gaged. 

If all monkeys were fossils, and if we had a 
natural history, also fossil, setting forth to us the 
customs and habits of these animals; if the sav- 
ages that are said to be the nearest neighbors to 
monkeys were all fossils; we should find our- 
selves in presence of a progressive and continued 
development of beings, and, for an inattentive 
mind, all would be easily explained by the slow 
and continued action of time. But this is not the 
case. All the elements of nature are before our 
eyes, from inorganic matter up toman. We do 
not see that time suffices for savages to become 
civilized, and still less for monkeys to become 


240 LECTURE Iv. 


* 


men. I was, in the spring of this year, in the 
Fardin des plantes at Paris, musing on the ques- 
tion which we are discussing, and I took a good 
look at the monkeys. Come now, I said to my- 
self, canst thou recognize them as thine ancestors? 
The question was badly put. . The monkeys are 
not our ancestors, inasmuch as they are living at 
the same time with us; they can only be our 
cousins, and it would seem that they are the 
eldest branch, as they have best preserved the 
primitive type. But let us speak more seriously. 
The races of monkeys have lived as long or 
longer than we: it is neither time nor climate 
_which has made men of them. Recollect, I pray 
you, that the words ‘ time’ and ‘ progress’ explain 
nothing. There must have occurred favorable 
circumstances to transform the earth’s substance 
into living cellules, and the living cellules into 
plants clearly marked, and into animals properly 
so called;:and in the same way there must have 
been a propitious circumstance to transform the 
monkey into man. I think so, in fact; and this 
propitious circumstance well deserves to be studied 
with attention. 

Man presents characteristics which distinguish 
him profoundly from the animal races: no one 


NATURE. 241 


disputes it. _ He possesses speech; he is capable 
of religion; he exhibits the varied phenomena of 
civilization, while the animals succeed one another 
generations after generations in the unrecorded 
obscurity of a life for ever the same. Suppose 
we admit that human phenomena presented them- 
selves at first in a very elementary form ; in rudi- 
ments of language and rudiments of religion, — 
although the historical sciences do not quite give 
this result : — still suppose the case that at a given 
moment a branch of the monkey species presented 
the germ, as little developed as you please, but 
real, of new phenomena. One variety of the 
monkey species has been endowed with speech, 
has become religious, capable of civilization, 
and the other varieties of the species have not 
offered the same characteristics, although they 
have had the same number of ages in which to 
develop themselves. Observe well now my pro- 
cess of reasoning. Remark attentively whether 
I oppose theories to facts, whether I substitute 
oratorical declamations for arguments. I grant 
the hypotheses best calculated, as commonly - 
thought, to contradict my theses. J assume that 
natural history demonstrates by solid proofs that 


the first man was carried in the bosom of a mon- 
16 


242 LECTURE IV. 


key; and I ask: What is the circumstance which 
set apart in the animal species a branch which 
presented new phenomena? What is the cause? 
That monkey-author of our race which one day 
began to speak in the midst of his brother-mon- 
keys, amongst whom thenceforward he had no 
fellow; that monkey, that stood erect in the sense 
of his dignity; that, looking up to heaven, said, 
My God! and that, retiring into himself, said: 
I!—that monkey which, while the female mon- 
keys continued to give birth to their young, had 
sons by the partner of his life and pressed them 
to his heart; that monkey —what shall we say 
‘of it? What climate, what soil, what regimen, 
what food, what heat, what moisture, what 
drought, what light, what combination of phos- 
phorus, what disengagement of electricity, separ- 
ated from the animal races, not only man, but 
human society? humanity with its combats, its 
falls, its risings again, its sorrows and its joys, 
its tears and its smiles; humanity with its arts, its 
sciences, its religion, its history in short, its his- 
tory and its hopes of immortality? ‘That mon- 
key, what shall we say of it? Do you not see 
that the breath of the Spirit passed over it, and 
that God said unto it: Behold, thou art made in 


EE 


NATURE. 243 


mine image: remember now thy Father who is in 
heaven? Do you not see that though we grant 
everything to the extreme pretensions of natural- 
ists, the question comes up again whole and 
entire? When by dint of confusions and sophisms 
such theorists imagine that they have extinguished 
the intelligence which radiates from nature, that 
intelligence again confronts them in man, and 
there, as in an impregnable fortress, sets all 
attacks at defiance. Mark then where lies the 
real problem. Whether the eternal God formed 
the body of the first man directly from the dust of 
the earth; or whether, in the slow series of ages, 
He formed the body of the first man of the dust 
of the earth, by making it pass through the long 
series of animality —the question is a grave one, 
but itis of secondary importance. The first ques- 
tion is to know whether we are merely the 
ephemeral product of the encounter of atoms, or 
whether there is in us an essence, a nature, a 
soul, a reality in short, with which may connect 
itself another future than the dissolution of the 
sepulchre ; whether there remains another hope. 
than annihilation as the term of our latest sorrows, 
or, for the aspirants after fame, only that evanes- 
cent memory which time bears away with every- 
thing beside. 


244 LECTURE IV. 


This is the question. Do not allow it to be put 
out of sight beneath details of physiology and re- 
searches of natural history, which can neither 
settle, nor so much as touch the problem. If 
therefore you fall in with any one of these philos- 
ophers of matter, bid him take this for all your 
answer: “There is one fact which stands out 
against your theory and suffices to overthrow it: 
that fact is— myself!” And since, to have the 
better of materialism, it is sufficient to understand 
well what is one thought of the mind, one throb 
of the spiritual heart, one utterance of the con- 
science, — add boldly with Corneille’s Medea : 


I,—I say, —and it is enough. 


In fact, nature does not explain man, and to 
this conclusion has tended all that I have said to 
you to-day. 


PES PURE V: 


TL LENLA NL) 2 ie 


(At Geneva, 1st. Dec., 1863.) 


GENTLEMEN, 

Man has need of God. If he be 
not fallen into the most abject degradation, he 
does not succeed in extinguishing the instinct 
which leads him to inquire after his Creator. 
A false wisdom labors to still the cravings which 
the truth alone can satisfy; but false wisdom 
remains powerless, and betrays itself continually 
by some outrageous contradiction. Here is a 
curious example of this: 

In a book which was famous in the last cen- 
tury, and which was called the gospel of athe- 
ism,* the Baron d’ Holbach explains as follows. 
the existence of the universe: “The universe, 


* Systeme de la Nature, published under the pseudonyme of 
Mirabaud. 


246 "LECTURE V. 


that vast assemblage of all that exists, every- 
where presents to our view only matter and mo- 
tion.— Nature is the grand whole which results 
from the assemblage of different material sub- 
stances, from their different combinations, and 
from the different motions which we see in the 
universe.” * Here is a clear doctrine: all that 
exists, the soul included, is nothing but matter in 
motion. I pass from the beginning to the end 
of the work, and I arrive at this conclusion: 
“QO nature! sovereign of all beings! and ye, her 
adorable daughters, virtue, reason, truth! be ye 
for ever our sole divinities; to you it is that the 
incense and the homage of the earth are due.” f 
If we try to translate this sort of hymn in accord- 
ance with the express definitions of the author, 
we shall obtain the following result: “O matter 
in motion ! sovereign of all material substances in 
motion! and ye, virtue, reason, truth, who are 
various names of matter which moves, be ye the 
only divinities of that moving matter which is our- 
selves.” Yet this author was no_ blockhead. 
What then passed in his mind? He laid down 
the thesis of materialism : bodies in motion are the 


* Systeme de la Nature, Part 1. chap. I. 
t+ ocd. Part u. chap. 14. 


HUMANITY. 2447 


only reality. But he is all the while a man. The 
need for adoration is not destroyed in his soul, and 
he deceives himself. He defines nature as con- 
sisting wholly of matter, and when he sets him- 
self td worship it, he entirely forgets his definition. 
This is not on his part a piece of philosophical 
jugglery, but the manifestation of the real condi- 
tion of our nature, which is always giving the lie, 
in one direction or another, to erroneous systems. 
The power of wholly maintaining himself in error 
has not been granted to man. He who denies 
God is always deifying something ; and all wor- 
ship which is not that of the Eternal and Infinite 
Mind is stultified by glaring contradictions. Here 
is a recent example of this: We were not a little 
surprised a short time since to see M. Ernest 
Renan deny clearly enough the immortality of 
our persons, and, in the opening of the very book 
in which this negation appears, to find him invok- 
ing the soul of his sister at rest with God.* 
‘Elsewhere, the same writer says that the Infinite 
Being does not exist, that absolute reason and 
absolute justice exist only in humanity, and he. 
concludes his exposition of these views by an in- 
vocation of the Heavenly Father.t The Baron 


* Vie de Fésus. Dedication. 
+ Revue des Deux Mondes of 15 January, 1860. 


248 LECTURE V. 


d’ Holbach had put eight hundred and thirty-nine 
pages between his materialistic definition of the 
universe and his invocation of nature. Now-a- 
days everything goes faster ; and M. Renan places 
but a few pages of the revue des Deux Mondes 
between his denial of God and his prayer to the 
Heavenly Father. With this difference, which is 
to the advantage of the writer of the eighteenth 
century, the process is absolutely the same. The 
philosopher declares God to be an imaginary 
being, and the future life an illusion; but the 
man protests, and, by a touching illusion of the 
heart, the man who in his system of doctrine has 


neither God nor hope, finds that he has a sister in 


the realms eternal, and a Father in the heavens. 
It is impossible not to see, especially in literary 
works destined to a success of fashion, the seduc- 
tive influence of art, the precautions of prudence, 
the concessions made to public opinion; but we 
cannot wholly explain the incredible contradic- 


tions of the Holbachs and Renans, without allow-- 


ing full weight to that need for God which shows 
itself even in the farthest wanderings of human 
thought by sudden and abrupt returns. 

The illusion which deifies matter in motion is 
gross enough. It belongs only to minds which 


HUMANITY. 249 


Cicero called, in the aristocratic pride of a Roman 
gentleman, the plebeians of philosophy.* It re- 
quires, in fact, no great reflection to understand 
that truth, beauty, and goodness are neither atoms 
nor a certain movement of atoms. ‘The attempt, 
which is to form the subject of our study to-day, 
that of deifying man, is a far more subtle one. 
Let us first of all inquire into the origin of the 
strange worship which humanity accords to itself. 

Nature, considered separately from the beings 
which receive sensible impressions from it, has 
neither heat nor light. In a world peopled by 
the blind, light would have no name. If all men 
‘were entirely paralyzed as to their sensations, the 
idea of heat would not exist. Light and heat, 
regarded as existing in matter itself, without ref- 
erence to sensitive organizations, are, in the opin- 
ion of our natural philosophers, only determinate 
movements. In the same way, if nature were 
without any spectator whatever, beauty would not 
exist; if there were nowhere any intelligence, 
truth would no longer be. In the same way again, 
if there were no wills, goodness, which is nothing 
else than the law of the will, would be a word 


* Plebeii philosophi qui a Platone et Socrate et ab ea familia 
dissident. 


250 LECTURE V. 


deprived of all meaning. Beauty expresses the 
object of the perceptions of the soul. ‘Truth 
denotes the quality of the judgments of intelli- 
gences. Goodness (I speak of moral goodness) 
expresses a certain direction of the free will. 
There exists no means of causing to proceed from 
nature, or from matter, the attributes of the spir- 
itual being. This is only done by imaginary 
transformations, by a course of arrant juggling. 
The flame does not feel its own heat, light does 
not see itself, the planets know nothing of the laws 
of Kepler. Materialism is the result of a modesty 
wholly misplaced which leads man to forget him- 
self, in order to attribute gratuitously to nature 
realities which exist only in spiritual beings con- 
nected with nature by a marvellous harmony. 
In order therefore to account for the universe, we 
must raise ourselves above the atom in motion, 
and penetrate into a higher world where truth, 
beauty, goodness become the objects of thought. 
Truth, beauty, goodness conduct the mind to God, 
their eternal source. But there is a philosophy 
which endeavors to stop midway in the ascent of 
the Divine ladder, and thinks to satisfy itself in 
the contemplation of the true, the beautiful, the 
good, without connecting them with their cause. 


HUMANITY. 251 


This philosophy considers the true, the beautiful, 
the good, as ideas which exist by themselves, 
without a supreme Spirit of which they are the 
manifestation. It has received, in consequence, 
the name of idealism. | 

To conceive of ideas without a mind, ideas 
having an existence by themselves, is a thing im- 
possible ; such a conception is expressed by words 
which give back a hollow sound, because they 
contain nothing. We have already stated this 
thesis; let us now confirm it by an example. A 
literary Frenchman, M. Taine, would make us 
understand in what manner the universe may be 
explained without reference to God, and by means 
of a pure idea. Listen well, not to understand, 
but to make sure that you do not understand: 
“The universe forms a unique being, indivisible, 
of which all the beings-are members. At the 
supreme summit of things, at the highest point of 
the luminous and inaccessible ether, pronounces 
itself the eternal axiom; and the prolonged re- 
sounding of this creative formula composes, by 
its inexhaustible undulations, the immensity of | 
the universe. Every form, every change, every 
movement, every idea is one of its acts.” * 


* Les philosophes francais du XIX® siecle, chap. XIV. 


252 LECTURE V. 


M. Taine is a man of humor, and the burlesque 
has a place in his philosophical writings; but in 
the words which I have just read to you he seems 
to have intended seriously to expound the system 
which replaces God by an idea. Try now to 
form a definite conception of this universe com- 
posed of the undulations of an axiom. Do you 
understand how an axiom undulates, and how the 
heavens and the earth are only the undulations of 
an axiom? Making all allowance for rhetoric 
and figures, do you understand what can be the 
acts of an axiom, and how an axiom fronounces 
itself without being pronounced? You do not un- 
derstand it, as neither do I. Such doctrines, then, 
as we have said, can only be the portion of a 
small number of thinkers who have lost, by dint 
of abstraction, the sentiment of reality. The 
ideas —truth, beauty, good —will only exist for 
the common order of men, under such a system, 
in the human mind, where we have cognizance 
of them; and thenceforward, the ideal, or God, 
is nothing else than the image of humanity which 
contemplates itself in a sort of mirage. Thus it 
is that the adoration of man by man is disengaged 
from the high theories of idealism. Let us pro- 
ceed to the examination of this worship, which is 


HUMANITY. 253 


cried up now-a-days in divers parts of the intel- 
lectual globe. 

I open the Revue des Deux Mondes, of the 15th 
February, 1861. As the author of the article I 
refer to * appears to admit “that one assertion 1s 
not more’ true than another opposed to it,” f we 
will not be so simple as to ask whether he adopts 
the opinions which he propounds. He presents 
to us, in a rapid sketch, the principal tendencies 
of the modern mind. The modern mind is here 
characterized by one of its declared partisans ; 
you will not take therefore for a wicked carica- 
ture the picture which he puts before us. Here 
then are the thoughts of the modern mind : “ There 
is only one infinite, that of our desires and our as- 
pirations, that of our needs and our efforts.{ The 
true, the beautiful, the just are perpetually occur- 
ring ; they are for ever in course of self-formation, 
because they are nothing else than the human 
mind, which, in unfolding itself, finds and knows 
itself again.”§ This is only the French trans- 
lation of a saying celebrated in Germany : “ God 
is not: He becomes.” What we call God is the 
human mind. What was there at the beginning 


* Heégel et ’ Hégélianisme par M. Ed. Schérer. 
+ Page 854. t Page 852. § Page 856. 


254 LECTURE V. 


of things? The human mind, which did not 
know itself. What will there be in the end? 
The human mind, which, in unfolding itself, will 
have come to know itself, and will adore itself 
as the supreme God. If this be indeed the final 
object of the universe, it appears that, in the 
opinion of these philosophers, the consummation 
of all things must be near. Once that humanity, 
faithful to their doctrine, shall have pronounced 
the lofty utterance, “I am God, and there is none 
else,” the world will no: longer have any reason 
for existing. 

Such is the system of which we have to follow 
out the consequences. Let us take as our point 
of comparison the old ideas which we are urged 
to abandon. 

We usually explain human destinies by the 
concurrence of two causes, infinitely distinct, 
since the one is creative and the other created, 
but both of which we hold for real: man, and 
God. Humanity has received from its Author 
the free power which we call will, and the law of 
that will which we name conscience. ‘The law 
proceeds from God, the liberty proceeds from 
God; but the acts of the created will, when it 
violates its law and revolts against its Author, are 


F atta is 
— 7 tr e “PRs — eS eee 


) 


HUMANITY. 255 


the creation of the creature. God is the eternal 
source of good, and liberty is a good; but God 
is not the source of evil, which is distinctly a 
revolt against Him, the abuse of the first of His 
gifts. Together with will, man has received 
understanding, and gives himself to the search 
after truth. Truth is the object of the under- 
standing, its Divine law. Error is a deviation 
from the law of the understanding, as evil is a 
deviation from the law of the will. Lastly, with 
will and understanding, man has received the 
faculty of feeling. This faculty applies itself to 
the world of bodies, from which we receive pain 
or pleasure. But our faculty of feeling does not 
stop there. Above the animal life, the mind has 
enjoyments which are proper to it, and the object 
of which is beauty. Beauty is not only in nature 
and in works of art, it is everywhere, in whatever 
attracts our love. The sciences are beautiful, 
and the harmony of the truths which are discov- 
ered in their order and mutual dependence causes 
us to experience a feeling similar to that produced 
by the most delightful music. Virtue is beautiful ; 
it shines in the view of the conscience with the 
purest brightness, and, as was said by one of the 
ancients, if it could reveal itself to our eyes in a 


256 LECTURE V. 


sensible form, it would excite in our souls feelings 
of inexpressible love. Vice is ugly when once 
stripped of the delusive fascination of the pas- 
sions; the vicious excesses of the lower nature 
are ugly and repulsive as soon as the intoxica- 
tionisover. Error is ugly too ;.there are no beauti- 
ful errors but those which contain a larger portion 
of truth than the prosaic verities, which are noth- 
ing else than falsehoods put in a specious way. 
Beauty therefore is the law of our feelings, as 
truth is the law of our thought, and good the law 
of our will. We will not inquire now what secret 
relations shall one day bring together in an indis- 
soluble unity of light, the good, the true, and the 
beautiful, and in a unity of darkness, evil, defor- 
mity, and falsehood. Let it suffice to have pointed 
out how a threefold aspiration leads man to God, 
under the guidance of the conscience, the under- 
standing, and the feelings; and that a threefold 
rebellion estranges him from God, by sinking him 
into the dark regions of deformity, error, and evil. 
Humanity has therefore a law; it has been en- 
dowed with liberty, but that a liberty of which 
the legitimate end is determined. It advances 
towards this end, or it swerves from it. There is 
a rule above its acts. The thing as it is may not 


ee eee — ee 


HUMANITY. 257 


be the thing as it ought to be; rebellion is not 
obedience, and good is not evil. 

All these consequences are included in the idea 
of creation. ‘The struggle between two opposite 
principles, a struggle which sums up human des- 
tiny, 1s a fact of which each-one of us can easily 
assure himself in his own person. What will 
happen when man, sensible of the law of his 
nature, and conscious of this struggle, proceeds to 
encounter humanity? Each one of us carries 
humanity in his own bosom. But humanity, the 
character of man which is common to us, and 
which makes the spiritual unity of our species, is 
found to be altered by the influence of places, 
times, and circumstances. Our reason is encum- 
bered by prejudices of birth and education, and 
by such as we have ourselves created in our 
minds in the exercise of our will. Our sense of 
beauty is vitiated and narrowed by local influ- 
ences and habits. Our conscience is likewise 
subjected to influences which impair its free mani- 
festation. Every one needs to enlarge his horizon. 
By seeking occasions of intercourse with our 
fellows, we shall learn to discriminate true and 
eternal beauty in the diversity of its manifesta- 
tions; we shall distinguish the truth from the 

17 


288 LECTURE V. 


. 


individual prepossessions of our own minds; good 
and evil, disengaged from the narrownesses of 
habit, will appear to us in their real and enduring 
nature. Our taste will be formed, our conscience 
purified, our mind enlarged; we shall more and 
more become men, in the high and full accepta- 
tion of the term. In order that the meeting 
together of the individual and of humanity may 
produce such fruits, God must dwell continually 
in the sanctuary ‘of the conscience. The inner 
light is kindled in the intercourse of the soul with 
its Creator; it is afterwards brightened and nur- 
tured by the soul’s intercourse with the traces of 
God which humanity reveals. But this light 
makes manifest within us, and without us, great 
darkness. We have no right to abandon our- 
selves to every spectacle which strikes our view. 
If, in presence of what is passing in the world, we 
are tempted to regard the prosperity of the wicked 
with cowardly envy; if we would fill up, for the 
satisfaction of our evil desires, the abyss which 
separates the holy from the impure, the inner 
voice lifts itself up and cries to us: “Woe! woe 
to them who call evil good, and good evil.” * 
God is our Master, even as He is our good and 


* Isa. xx. 20. 


HUMANITY. 259 


our hope. The fact of the revolts of humanity 
can have no effect against His sovereign will. 
Soldiers in the service of the Almighty, life is 
for us a conflict, and duty imposes on us a com- 
bat. 

Such, Sirs, is the explanation of our destinies, 
an old, and, if you like, a vulgar one. Let us 
now give our attention to the doctrine which dei- 
fies humanity, and follow out its consequences. 
Humanity carries within its bosom the idea of 
truth, the love of beauty, the sense of good. 
What does it need more? These noble aspira- 
tions mark for it the end of its efforts. What will 
be wanting to a life regulated by duty, enlight- 
ened by truth, ennobled by art? What will be 
wanting to such a life? Nothing, or everything. 
Nothing, if the search after good, truth, and 
beauty leads to God. Everything, if it be sought 
to carry it on without any reference to God, be- 
cause from the moment that man desires to be the 
source of light to himself, the light will be changed 
into darkness, as we said at the beginning of this 
lecture. Put God out of view, and good, beauty, 
and truth will disappear ; while you will see pro- 
duced the decline of art, the dissolution of thought 
in scepticism, the absolute negation of morality. 


260 LECTURE V. 


Let us consider with the attention it deserves, and 
in contemporary examples, this sad and curious 
spectacle. 

I open a treatise by M. Taine. The English 
historian Macaulay speaks of literary men who 
“have taken pains to strip vice of its odiousness, 
to render virtue ridiculous, to rank adultery 
among the elegant fashions and - obligatory 
achievements of a man of taste.” The honest 
Englishman takes the liberty to judge and to 
condemn men who have made so pernicious a use 
of their talents. This pretension to make the 
conscience speak is in the eyes of the French man 
-of letters a gothic prejudice. Listen how he ex- 
presses himself on the subject: * Criticism in 
France has freer methods. — When we try to give 
an account of the life, or to describe the character, 
of a man, we are quite willing to consider him 
simply as an object of painting or of science. . . . 
We do not judge him, we only wish to represent 
him to the eyes and to set him intelligibly before 
the reason. We are curious inquirers and noth- 
ing more. That Peter or Paul was a knave 
matters little to us, that was the business of his 
contemporaries, who suffered from his vices — 
At this day we are out of his reach, and hatred 


HUMANITY. 261 


has disappeared with the danger — I experience 
neither aversion nor disgust; I have left these 
feelings at the gate of history, and I taste the 
very deep and very pure pleasure of seeing a soul 
act according to a definite law —.”* You under- 
stand, Gentlemen: the distinction between good 
and evil, as that between error and truth; these 
are old sandals which must be put off before en- 
tering into the temple of history; and the man of 
the nineteenth century, if he has taste and infor- 
mation, is merely an historian, and nothing more. 
The sacred emotion which generous actions pro- 
duce in us, the indignation stirred in us by base- 
ness and cruelty, are childish emotions which are 
to disappear in order that we may be free to con- 
template vice and virtue with a pleasure always 
equal, very deep, and very pure. We have not 
here the aberration of a young and ill-regulated 
mind, but the doctrine of a school. I open again 
the Arevue des Deux Mondes, and there I encoun- 
ter the theory of which M. Taine has made the 
application: “We no longer know anything of 
morals, but of manners ; of principles, but of facts. | 
We explain everything, and, as has been said, 
the mind ends by approving of all that tt explains. 


* Essais de critique et d’ histoire, pp. 8 and 9. 


262 LECTURE V. 


Modern virtue is summed up in toleration.* — 
Immense novelty! That which is, has for us the 
right to be.f — In the eyes of the modern savant, 
all is true, allis right in its own place. The place 
of each thing constitutes its truth.” ¢ 

I cut short the enumeration of these enormities. 
All rule has disappeared, all morality is destroy- 
ed; there is no longer any difference between 
right and fact, between what is and what ought 
to be. And what is the real account to give of 
all this? It is as follows: Humanity is the high- 
est point of the universe; above it there is noth- 
ing; humanity is God, if we consent to take that 
‘sacred name in a new sense. How then is it to 
be judged? In the name of what rule? since 
there is no rule: in the name of what law? since 
there is no law. All judgment is a personal pre- 
judice, the act of a narrow mind. We do not 
judge God, we simply recount His dealings; we 
accept all His acts, and record them with equal 
veneration. All science is only a history, and 
the first requisite in a historian is to reduce to 
silence his conscience and his reason, as sorry 
and deceitful exhibitions of his petty personality, 


* Revue des Deux Mondes, 15 Feb. 1861, page 855. 
t Page 853. t Page 854. 


SS ee 


ae 


Pe ——— 


HUMANITY. 263 


in order to accept all the acts of the humanity- 
deity, and establish their mutual connection. The 
deification of the human mind is the justification of 
all its acts, and, by a direct consequence, the an- 
nihilation of all morality. Let us look more in 
detail at the origin and development of these 
notions. 

The individual placing himself before human- 
ity is to accept everything: this is the disposition 
recommended to us, in the name of the modern 
mind. Good and evil are narrow measures which 
minds behind the age persist, ridiculously enough, 
in wishing to apply to things. “We no longer 
transform the world to our image by bringing it 
to our standard; on the contrary, we allow our- 
selves to be modified and fashioned by it.”* ‘The 
individual goes therefore to meet humanity with- 
out any inner rule: he gives himself up, he aban- 
dons himself to the spectacle of facts. But the 
world is large, and history is long. Even those 
who spend their whole life in nothing else than in 
satisfying their curiosity, cannot see and know 
everything. To what then shall be directed that 
vague look, equally attracted to all points for 
want of any,fixed rule? At what shall it stop? 

* Revue des Deux Mondes of the 15th Feb. 1861, page 854. 


264 LECTURE V. 


It will rest on that which shines most brilliantly, 
like a moth attracted by light. Now, nothing 
shines more brightly than success; nothing more 
solicits the attention. The glorification of suc- 
cess is the first and most infallible consequence 
of moral indifference. In leaving ourselves to be, 
fashioned by the world instead of bringing it to 
our standard, we shall begin by according our 
esteem to victory. This philosophy is come to 
us from Germany. It was set forth on one occa- 
sion, in France, with great éc/at, by the brilliant 
eloquence of a man who has rendered signal ser- 
vices to philosophy, and whose entire works must 
not be judged of by the single particular which I 
am about to mention. In the year 1829, M. 
Cousin was developing at the Sorbonne the mean- 
ing of these verses of La Fontaine, which intro- 
duce the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb: 


La raison du plus fort est toujours la meilleure: 
Je vais le montrer tout 41’ heure. 


He had written as the programme of one of his 
lectures: Morality of Victory. Now see how he 
justified this surprising title: “I have absolved - 
victory as necessary and useful; I now undertake 
to absolve it as just in the strictest sense of the 


/ 


HUMANITY. 265 


word. Men do not usually see in success any- 
thing else than the triumph of strength, and an 
honorable sympathy draws us to the side of the 
vanquished ; I hope I have shown that since there 
must always be a vanquished side, and .since the 
vanquished side is always that which ought to be 
so, to accuse the conqueror is to take part against 
humanity, and to complain of the progress of civ- 
ilization. We must go farther; we must prove 
that the vanquished deserved to be so, that the 
conqueror not only serves the interests of civiliza- 
tion, but that he is better, more moral than the 
vanquished, and that it is on that account he is 
the conqueror. . . . It is time that the philosophy 
of history should place at its feet the declamations 
of philanthropy.” * 

These words are worth considering. When 
Brennus the Gaul was having the gold weighed 
which he exacted from the vanquished Romans, 
he threw his heavy sword into the balance, ex- 
claiming, Ve victis! Woe to the conquered! 
He simply meant to say that he was the stronger, 
and did not foresee that a Gaul of the nineteenth _ 
century, availing himself of the labors of learned 
Germany, would demonstrate that being the 


* Introduction aT histotre de la philosophie. Neuvieme lecon. 


266 LECTURE V. 


stronger he was on that very account the more 
just. But we must not wander too far from our 
subject. 

When the spectacle of the world is freely in- 
dulged in without any application to it of the 
measure of the conscience, what first strikes the 
view is success. It is necessary therefore to begin 
with rendering glory to success by declaring vic- 
tory good. Now, mark well here the conflict of 
the old notions with the so-called modern mind. 
From the old point of view, victory in the issue 
belongs to good, because while man is tossed in 
strife and tumult, God is leading him on; but the 
success of good is realized by conflict, and the 
victory is often reached only after a long series of 
defeats. There are bad triumphs and impious 
successes. What is proposed to us is, to put aside 
the rule of our own judgments, and to declare 
that victory is good in itself. The old point of 
view, that of the conscience, does not surrender 
without an energetic resistance; and that resist- 
ance shows itself in the very words of M. Cousin. 
His thesis is, that all victory is just. His inten- 
tion is therefore to approve victory. Why does 
he say absolve ? it is the term which he employs. 
Since the matter in question is to absolve victory, 


HUMANITY. 267 


it is placed on trial. It is accused of being, like 
fortune and fame, at one time on the side of good 
and justice, at another on the side of injustice and 
evil. Which then is the party accused? Victory. 
Who is the advocate ? An eloquent professor. 
Who finally is the accuser? Do you not see? 
It is the human conscience; the conscience which 
protests in the soul of the orator against the theory 
of which he is enamoured, and which forces him 
to say absolve when he should say glorz/y. And 
in fact the choice must be made: either to glorify 
victory, by treading under foot that narrow con- 
science which sometimes ranks itself with Cato on 
the side of the vanquished ; or to glorify conscience 
by impeaching the victories which outrage it. 

It is not sufficient, however, to sacrifice the 
conscience in order to rescue from embarrassment 
the philosophy of success. It strikes on other 
rocks also. The same causes are by turns victo- 
rious and vanquished, and it is hard to make men 
understand that, in conflicts in which their dearest 
affections are engaged, they must beforehand, 
and in all cases, take part with the strongest. It | 
will be in vain for the philosopher to say that the 
Swiss of Morgarten were right, for that they beat 
the Austrians; but that the heroes of Rotenthurm 


268 LECTURE V. 


were greatly in the wrong, because, crushed with- 


out being vanquished, they were obliged to yield 


to numbers, and leave at last their country’s soil 
to be trodden by the stranger;—the children of 
old Switzerland will find it hard to admit this 
doctrine. Even in France, in that nation so 
accustomed to encircle its soldiers’ brows with 
laurel, this difficulty has risen up in-the way of 
M. Cousin. Béranger, when asked for a souvenir 
of Waterloo, 


Replied, with drooping eyelid, tear-bedewed : 
Never that name shall sadden verse of mine.* 


But philosophy would be worth little if it had 
not at its disposal more extensive resources than 
those of a song-writer. M. Cousin therefore looked 
the difficulty in the face. Victory 1s always 
good. But how shall young Frenchmen be made 
to hear this with regard to that signal defeat of 
the armies of France? Listen: “It is not popu- 
lations which appear on battle-fields, but ideas 
and causes. So at Leipzig and at Waterloo two 
causes came to the encounter, the cause of pater- 
nal monarchy and that of military democracy. 


* Tl répondit, baissant un ceil humide: 
Jamais ce nom n’ attristera mes vers. 


a ee ee ee ee 


eee tel 


HUMANITY. 269 


Which of them carried the day, Gentlemen ? 
Neither the one nor the other. Who was the 
conqueror and who the conquered at Waterloo ? 
Gentlemen, there were none conquered. (AP- 
plause.) No, I protest that there were none: 
the only conquerors were European civilization 
and the map. (Unanimous and prolonged ap- 
plause.)” * 

To make the youth of Paris applaud at the re- 
membrance of Waterloo is perhaps one of the 
most brilliant triumphs of eloquence which the 
annals of history record. But this rhetorical suc- 
céss is not a triumph of truth. There were those 
who were conquered at Waterloo; and, to judge 
by what has been going on for some time past in 
- Europe, it would seem that those who were con- 
quered are bent on taking their revenge. We 
may infer from these facts that all triumphs are 
not good, since truth may be for a moment over- 
come by a false philosophy tricked out in the de- 
ceitful adornments of eloquence. 

But let us admit, whatever our opinion on the 
subject, that the Waterloo rock has been passed 
successfully ; we have not yet pointed out the | 
main difficulty which rises up in the way of this 


* Introduction uT histoire de la philosophie. Treizieme leon, 


270 LECTURE V. 


system. If victory is good, it seems at first sight 
that defeat is bad. But defeat is the necessary 
condition of victory; and being the condition of 
good, it seems therefore that it also is good; and 
the mind comes logically to this conclusion: 
“Victory is good ;— defeat is good, since it is the 
condition of victory ;—all is good.” We set out 
with the glorification of victory, and, lo! we are 
arrived at the glorification of fact. All that is, has 
the right to be; in the eyes of the modern savant 
whatever is, is right. MM. Cousin laid down the 
principle; he laid it down in a general manner 
in his philosophical eclecticism, of which it was 
-easy to make use, as has in fact been done, in a 
sense contrary to his real intentions. Our young 
critics, wasting an inheritance of which they do ° 
not appear always to recognize the origin, are 
doing nothing else, very often, than catching as 
they die away the last vibrations of that surpass- 
ing eloquence. 

In the eyes of the modern savant, everything is 
right and good: such is the axiom for which the 
labors of more than one modern historian had 
prepared us. We are to seek for the relation of 
facts one to another, that is to explain; and all 
that we explain, we must approve. Let us follow 
out this thought in a few examples. 


HUMANITY. pit 


It was necessary that Louis XVI should be 
beheaded and the guillotine permanently set up, 
in order to manifest the result of the disorders of 
Louis XIV, of the shameful excesses of Louis 
XV, and of the licentious immorality of French 
society. It was necessary for Louis XIV to be 
an adulterer, Louis XV a debauchee, the clergy 
corrupt, and the nobility depraved, to bring about 
the shocks of the revolution. The facts mutually 
correspond; I explain, and I approve. In the 
eyes of the modefn savant everything is right. 

It was necessary that Buonaparte should throw 
the Corps législatif out of the window, that he 
should let loose his armies upon Europe, and 
leave thousands of dead bodies in the snows of 
Russia, in order to end the revolution, and extin- 
cuish the restless ardor of the French. It needed 
the massacres of September, the gloomy days of 
the Terror, the anarchy of the period of the Direc- 
tory, to throw dismayed France into the arms of 
the crowned soldier who was to carry to so high 
a pitch her glory and her influence. The facts 
correspond; I explain, and I approve. In the 
eyes of the modern savant, everything is right. 

I consider the character of Nero. I take him 
at the commencement of his reign, when, being 


Pay ip LECTURE V. 


forced to sign the death-warrant of a criminal, he 
exclaimed —“ Would I were unable to write!” 
And then again I regard hith after he has perpe- 
trated acts such that to apply his name in future 
ages to the cruellest of tyrants shall appear to 
them a cruel injury. What-has taken place in 
the interval? The development of his natural 
character, Agrippina, Narcissus . . . I under- 
stand the play of all the springs which have made 
a monster. As I am out of his clutches, my 
detestation vanishes with the danger. “I taste 
the very deep and very pure pleasure of seeing a 
mind act according to a definite law.” I under- 
stand, I explain, I approve. In the eyes of the 
modern savant, everything is right. 

It would be impossible, Gentlemen, to pursue 
this reasoning to its extreme limits without offend- 
ing against the commonest decency. We should 
have to descend into blood and mire, continuing 
to declare the while that everything is right. I 
pause therefore, and leave the rest to your imagi- 
nations. Open the most dismal pages of history. 
Choose out the acts which inspire the most vivid 
horror and disgust, the blackest examples of 
ingratitude, the meanest instances of cowardice, 
the cases of most refined cruelty, and the most 


HUMANITY. 273 


hideous debaucheries: thence let your thoughts 
pass to facts which bedew the eyelid with the 
tear of tenderest emotion, to the cases of most 
heroic self-devotion, to sacrifices the most hum- 
ble in their greatness; and then try to apply 
the rule of the modern savant, and to say that 
all this is equally right and good, and that 
- whatever is has the right to be. Open the book 
of your own heart. Think of one of those base 
temptations which assault the best of us, one of 
those thoughts which raise a blush in solitude; 
then think of the best, the purest, the most disin- 
terested of the feelings which have.ever been 
given to your soul; and try again to apply the rule 
of the modern savant, and to affirm that all this 
is equally good, and that all that is has the right to 
be. I know very well that in general these doc- 
trines are applied to things looked at in the mass, 
and to the far-off past of history ; but this is a poor 
subterfuge for the defenders of these monstrous 
theses. Things viewed in the mass are only 
the assemblage of things viewed in detail. If 
the distinction of good and evil do not exist for 
general facts, how should it exist for particular 
facts? And how can we apply to the past a rule 
which we refuse to apply to the present, seeing 
18 


274. LECTURE V. 


that the present is nothing else than the past of 
the future, and that the facts of our own time are 
matter for history to our posterity? These, I re- 
peat, are but vain subterfuges. If humanity is 
always adorable, itis so in the faults of the mean- 
est of men as in the splendid sins of the magnates 
of the earth; it is so to-day as it was thirty centu- 


ries ago; the god in growing old does not cease. 


to be the same. 

When the mind is engaged in these pernicious 
ways, the spring of the moral life is broken, and 
the practical consequence is not long in appear- 
ing. The philosophers of success, having be- 
come the philosophers of the fact accomplz, accept 
all and endure all; but in another sense than that 
in which charity accepts all, that it may trans- 
form all by the power of love. It is the morality 
of Philinte : 


I take men quietly, and as they are: 
And what they do I train my soul to bear.* 


These instructions are not very necessary. 
There will always be people enough found ready 
to applaud victory, and to fall in with the faz 


* Je prends tout doucement les hommes comme ils sont, 
J accoutume mon ame & souffrir ce qu’ ils font. 


HUMANITY. 275 


accompli. But is it not sad to see men of mind, 
men of heart too, perhaps, making themselves 
the theorists of baseness, and the philosophers of 
cowardice? 

There is still more to be said. From the glori- 
fication of success the mind passes necessarily, as 
we have just seen, to the glorification alike of all 
that is. It would appear at first sight that the 
adept in the doctrine must find himself in a condi- 
tion of indifference with regard to what prejudiced 
men continue to call good and evil. This indif- 
ference however is only apparent. When it is 
granted that nothing is evil, the part of good dis- 
appears in the end. There had been formed in 
ancient Rome, under pretence of religion, a se- 
cret society, which had as its fundamental dogma 
the aphorism that nothing zs evil.* The mem- 
bers of the society did not practise good and evil, 
it appears, with equal indifference, for the magis- 
trates of the republic took alarm, and smothered, 
by a free employment of death and imprisonment, 
a focus of murders, violations, false witness, and 
forged signatures. This fact reveals, with omi-~ 
nous clearness, a movement of thought on the 
nature of which it is easy to speculate. 

” 


Nihil nefas ducere, hanc summam inter cos religionem 
eeae., (Dit. Live lib: xxxite cy 13.) 


276 LECTURE V. 


When man casts a vague glance over the world, 


extinguishing the while the inner light of con-— 


science ; when he resigns himself to the things he 
contemplates without applying to them any stand- 
ard, what first strikes his attention, as we have 
said before, is success. And what next? Sean- 
dal. Nothing comes more into view than scandal. 
In a vast city, thousands of young men gain their 
livelihood laboriously, and devote themselves to 
the good of their families: no one speaks of them. 
A libertine loses other men’s money at play, and 
blows out his brains: all the city knowsit. Honest 
women live in retirement; the king’s mistresses 
form the subject of general conversation. Crime 
and baseness hide themselves ; but up to the limits 
of what the world calls infamy, evil delights in 
putting itself forward, because éc/at and noise 
supply the means of deadening the conscience ; 
while, as regards the grand instincts of charity, 
it has been well said that— “the obscure acts of 
devotedness are the most magnificent.” The poor 
and wretched shed tears in obscurity over benefits 
done secretly, while folly loves to display its glit- 
tering spangles, and shakes its bells in the public 
squares. There is in each one of us more evil 
than we think; but there is in the world more 


HUMANITY. 7 


good than is commonly known. ‘There are con- 
cealed virtues which only show themselves to the 
eye of the faith which looks for them, and of 
the attention which discovers them.  Bethink 
you, especially, how the laws of morality set at 
defiance appear again triumphant in the sorrows 
of repentance; those laws have their hour, and 
that hour is usually a silent one. Let a poet of 
genius defile his works by the impure traces of a 
life spent in dissipation, and his brow shall shine 
in the sight of all with the twofold splendor of 
success and of scandal. But if, stretched ona 
bed of pain, he renders a tardy but sincere hom- 
age to the law which he has violated, to the truth 
which he has ignored, his voice will often be 
confined to the sick chamber; his companions in 
debauchery and infidelity will mount guard per- 
haps around his dwelling, in order to prevent the 
public from learning that their friend is a de- 
faulter. The ball and the theatre make a noise 
and attract observation; but men turn their eyes 
from hospitals, those abodes in which, in the 
silence of sickness, or amidst the dull cries of 
pain, there germinate so many seeds of immor- 
tality. Yes, Sirs, evil is more apparent than 
good. ‘The violations of the divine law have 


279 LECTURE V. 


more éc/at than penitence. And what is the 
consequence? The man who abandons himself 
to the spectacle of the world, and who takes that 
spectacle for the rule of his thoughts, will see the 
world under a false aspect, and, in his estimation, 
evil will have more advantage over good than it 
has in reality. It will appear to him altogether 
dominant, and will thenceforward become his 
rule. From the glorification of success, we 
passed to the glorification of fact; from the glori- 
fication of fact, we arrive at last at the glorifica- 
tion of evil. We have seen how is illustrated the 
morality of victory. In the same current of ideas, 
a book famous now-a-days, and quite full of out-_ 
rages to the conscience, supplies us with illustra- 
tions of the morality of falsehood. M. Ernest 
Renan, in his explanation of Christianity, has ap- 
plied, point after point, the theory which I have just 
set forth to you. In order to estimate the grand 
movements of the human mind, he frees himself 
from the vulgar prejudices which make up the 
ordinary morals, and abandons himself to the im- 
pression of the spectacle which he contemplates. 
Jesus had a success without parallel. This suc- 
cess was based on charlatanism ; and it is habitu- 
ally so. To lead the nations by deceiving them 


HUMANITY. 2 79 


is the lesson of history, and the good rule to fol- 
low. We find falsehood fortunate as matter of 
fact, we explain it, we approve it. 

Whither then are we bound, under the guid- 
ance of modern science? An irresistible current 
is drawing us on, and causing us to leave the 
morals of Philinthe in our rear.. We are coming 
to those which Racine has engraven in immortal 
traits in the person of Mathan. When once con- 
science is put aside, all means are good in order 
to succeed; and the experience of the world 
teaches us that, to succeed, the: worst means are 
often the best. 

It is not only at the theatre that such lessons 
are received; they come out but too commonly 
from the ordinary dealings of life. Seta young 
man face to face with the world as it exhibits 
itself, and tell him to give himself up to what he 
sees, to let himself be fashioned by life. He will 
soon come to know that strict probity is a virtue 
of the olden times, chastity a fantastic excellence, 
and conscientious scruples an honorable simpli- 
city. Evil will become in his eyes the ordinary 
rule of life. When the socialist Proudhon wrote 
that celebrated sentence, “ Property is robbery,” 
there arose an immense outcry. Ought there 


280 LECTURE V. 


not to arise a louder outcry around a theory which 
arrives by a fatal necessity at this consequence: 
“Evil is good”? 

But do these doctrines exercise any influence 
for the perversion of public morals? Much; 
their influence is disastrous. And do the men 
who profess them believe them, taking the word 
‘believe’ in its real and deep meaning? No; 
they often do mischief which they do not mean to 
do, and do not see that they do. They are in- 
toxicated with a bad philosophy, and intoxication 
renders blind. It is easy to prove that these 
optimists, who in theory find that everything is 
right, are perpetually contradicting themselves in 
practice. Address yourselves to one of them, 
and say to him: “Your doctrine is big with im- 
morality. You do not yourself believe it; and 
when you pretend to believe it, you lie.” This 
man who tolerates everything will not tolerate 
your freedom of speech. He will get angry, and, 
according to the old doctrines, he will have the 
right to be so, for insult is an evil. Then say to 
him: “Here you are, it seems to me, in contra- 
diction with your system. Everything is right; 
the vivacity of my speech therefore is good. All 
that is has the right to be; my indignation is 


Eo 


HUMANITY. 281 


therefore a legitimate fact, and it appears to me 
that yours cannot be so unless you allow (an ad- 
mission which would be contrary to your system) 
that mine is not so.” If you have to do with a 
sensible man, he will begin to laugh. If you 
have met with a blockhead, he will be more 
angry than ever. This contradiction comes out 
in every page, and in a more serious manner, in 
the writings of our optimists. One cannot read 
them with attention, without meeting incessantly 
with the protest of their moral nature against the 
despotism of a false mode of reasonig. The man 
is at every moment making himself heard, the 
man who has a heart, a conscience, a reason, 
and who contradicts the philosopher without being 
aware of it. Contradictions these, honorable to 
the writer, but dangerous for the reader, because 
they serve to invest with brilliant colors doctrines 
which in themselves are hideous. 

No, Gentlemen, it is impossible to succeed in 
adoring humanity, preserving the while the least 
consistency of reasoning.. In vain men wish to 
accept everything, to tolerate everything ; in vain - 
they wish to impose silence on the inner voice: 
that voice rebels against the outrage, and its re- 
volt declares itself in the most manifest contradic- 


282 LECTURE V. 


tions. The Humanity-God is divided, and the 
affirmation —“ Everything is right” — will con- 
tinue false as long as there shall be upon the 
earth a single conscience unsilenced, as long as 
there shall be in a single heart 


ide (iene ae that mighty hate 
Which in pure souls vice ever must create ; * 


that hatred which is nothing else than the indirect 
manifestation of the sacred love of goodness. 

The doctrine that all is equally good, equally 
divine, in the development of humanity, explains 
nothing, because humanity, torn by a profound 
. struggle, condemns its own acts, and protests 
against its degradations. It cries aloud to itself 
that there are principles above facts, a moral law 
superior to the acts of the will; and all the petty 
clamors of a deceitful and deceived philosophy 
cannot stifle that clear voice. Not only do these 
doctrines explain nothing, they do not even suc- 
ceed in expressing themselves; language fails 
them. “Everything is right and good.” What 
will these words mean, from the time there is no 
longer any rule of right? How is it possible to 

2 


alee Saray: Ces haines vigoureuses 
Que doit donner le vice aux 4mes vertueuses. 


HUMANITY. 283 


approve, when we have no power to blame? The 
idea of good implies the idea of evil; the opposi- 
tion of good and evil supposes a standard applied 
to things, a law superior to fact. He who approves 
of everything may just as well despise everything. 
But contempt itself has no longer any meaning, 
if esteem is a word void of signification. We 
must say simply that all is as it is, and.abandon 
those terms of speech which conscience has 
stamped with its own superscription. We must 
purify the dictionary, and consign to the his- 
tory of obsolete expressions such terms as good, 
evil, esteem, contempt, vice, virtue, honor, in- 
famy, and the like. The doctrine which, to be 
consistent with itself, ought to reduce us to a kind 
of stupid indifference, does such violence to hu- 
man nature that its advocates are incapable of 
enunciating it without contradicting themselves 
by the very words they make use of. 

All these extravagances are the inevitable con- 
sequence of the adoration of humanity. The 
Humanity-God has no rule superior to itself. 
Whatever it does must be put on record merely, 
and not judged: it is the immolation of the con- 
science. But on what altar shall we stretch this 
great victim? Shall we sacrifice it to pure reason, 


. 284. LECTURE V. 


to reason disengaged from all prejudice? Allow 
me to claim your attention yet a few minutes 
longer. 

The Humanity-God in all its acts escapes the 
judgment of the conscience. What measure 
shall we be able to apply to its thoughts? None. 
The God which cannot do evil, cannot be mis- 
taken either. For the modern savant all is true, 
for exactly the same reason that all is right. 
The human mind unfolds itself in all directions ; 
all these unfoldings are legitimate; all are to be 
accepted equally by a mind truly emancipated. 
Furnished with this rule, I make progress in the 
‘history of philosophy. The Greek Democritus 
affirms that the universe is only an infinite num- 
ber of atoms moving as chance directs in the 
immensity of space: I record with veneration 
this unfolding of the human mind. The Greek 
Plato affirms that truth, beauty, good, like three 
eternal rays, penetrate the universe and consti- 
tute the only veritable realities: I record with 
equal veneration this other unfolding of the 
human mind. I pass to modern times. Des- 
cartes tells me that thought is the essence of man, 
and that reason alone is the organ of truth. 
Helvetius tells me that man is a mass of organ- 


HUMANITY. 285 


ized matter which receives its ideas only from the 
senses. These two theses are equally legitimate, 
and J admit them both. I quit now philosophers 
by profession to address myself to those literary 
journalists who deal out philosophy in crumbs for 
the use of feuzlletons and reviews. ‘There I find 
all possible notions in the most astounding of jum- 
bles. “The villain has his apologist; the good 
man his calumniator. . . . Marriage is honora- 
ble, so is adultery. Order is preached up, so is 
riot, So is assassination, provided it be politic.” * 
I contemplate with a calm satisfaction, with a 
very deep and very pure pleasure, these various 
unfoldings of the human mind; I place them all, 
with the same feelings of devotion, in the pan- 
theon of the intelligence. I cannot do otherwise, 
inasmuch as there is no rule of fruth superior to 
the thoughts of men, and because the human 
mind is the supreme, universal, and infallible in-, 
telligence. 

But will our mind be able to entertain together 
two directly opposite assertions? Will contradic- 
tion no longer be the sign of error? We must ~ 
come to this; we must acknowledge that the 
modern mind, breaking with superannuated tra- 


* Mélanges de Tipffer. De la mauvaise presse considerée 
comme excellente. 


286 LECTURE V. 


ditions, has proclaimed the principle “that one 
assertion is not more true than an opposite asser- 
tion.” We must proclaim that the thinker has 
not to disquiet himself “about the vea/ contra- 
dictions into which he may fall; and that a true 
philosopher has absolutely nothing to do with 
»* The fear of self-contradiction 
may be excused in Aristotle and Plato, in St. 
Anselm and St. Thomas, in Descartes and Leib- 
nitz. These writers were still wrapped in the 
swaddling clothes of old errors; the light of the 
nineteenth century had not shone upon their 
cradles; but the epoch of enfranchisement is 
‘come. These things, Gentlemen, are printed 
now-a-days; they are printed at Paris, one of 
the metropolises of thought ! 

Mark well whereabouts we are. We must ad- 
mit — what? that all is true. But, if all is true, 
there is nothing true, just as if all is good, there 
is nothing good. There are thoughts in men’s 
heads; to make history of them is an agreeable 
pastime ; but there is no truth. We must not say 
that two contradictory propositions are equally 


consistency. 


* Revue des Deux Mondes of 15 Feb. 1861, page 854.— 
Etudes critiques sur la littérature contemporaine, par Edmond 
Scherer, page x. et xi. 


HUMANITY. 287 


true ; that would be to make use of the old notion 
of truth; we must say that they are, and that is 
all about it. The night is approaching, the sun 
of intelligence is sinking towards the horizon, 
and thick vapors are obscuring its setting. But 
wait ! 

If the Humanity-God is always right, it must 
be that two contradictory propositions can be true 
at the same time, since contradictions abound in 
the history of human thoughts. If two contradic- 
tory propositions can be true, there is no more 
truth. What then is our reason, of which truth 
is the object? We are seized with giddiness. 
Might not everything in the world be illusion? 
and myself— ? Listen to a voice which reaches 
us, across the ages, from the countries crowned 
by the Himalayas. “Nothing exists. ... By 
the study of first principles, one acquires this 
knowledge, absolute, incontestable, comprehensi- 
ble to the intelligence alone: I neither am, nor 
does anything which is mine, nor do I myself, 
exist.”* What is there beneath these strange 


* Sa’nkya— ka’rika’, 61 and 64. The text 61 in which 
occur the words ‘‘ Nothing exists” is hard to understand, but 
there appears to be no doubt of the meaning of No. 64. Von 
sum, non est meum, nec sum ego. 


288 LECTURE V. 


lines? The feeling of giddiness, which seeks to 
steady itself by language. Here is now the mod- 
ern echo of these ancient words. One of those 
writers who accept all, in the hope of understand- 
ing all, describes himself as having come at last 
to be aware that he is “only one of the most fugi- 
tive illusions in the bosom of the infinite illusion.” 
One of his colleagues expresses himself on this — 
subject as follows: “Is this the last word of all? 
—And why not?—The illusion which knows 
itself —is it in fact an illusion? Does it not in 
some sort triumph over itself? Does it not attain 
to the sovereign reality, that of the thought which 
thinks itself, that of the dream which knows itself 
a dream, that of nothingness which ceases to be so, 
in order to recognize itself and to assert itself?” * 
We are gone back to ancient India. You will 
remark here three stages of thought. The fugi- 
tive illusion is man. The infinite illusion is the 
universe. ‘The universal principle of the appear- 
ances which compose the universe is nothingness. 
Here is the explanation of the universe! Noth- 
ingness takes life; nothingness takes life only to 
know itself to be nothingness; and the nothing- 


* Etudes critiques sur la littérature contemporaine, par Ed- 
mond Scherer. — M. Sainte-Beuve, p. 354. 


HUMANITY. 289 


ness which says to itself, “I am nothingness,” 
is the reason of existence of all that is. I said 
just now that the sun was declining to the hori- 
zon. Now the last glimmer of twilight has disap- 
peared ; night has closed in — a dark and starless 
night. Yes, Sirs, but there is never on the earth 
a night so dark as to warrant us in despairing of 
the return of the dawn. If the modern mind is 
such as it is described to us, it has lost all the 
rays of light; but the sun is not dead. 

The doctrine of non-existence and of illusion is 
entirely incomprehensible, in the sense in which 
to comprehend signifies to have a clear idea, and 
one capable of being directly apprehended. But, 
if one follows the chain of ideas as logically un- 
rolled, in the way that a mathematician follows 
the transformations of an algebraical formula, 
without considering its real contents, it is easy to. 
account for the origin of this theory. If the hu- 
man mind has no rule superior to itself, if it is 
the absolute mind, God, all its thoughts are 
equally true, since we cannot point out error 

without having recourse to a rule of truth. If all 

doctrines are equally true, propositions directly 

and absolutely contradictory are equally true. If 

all is true, there is no truth; for truth is not con- 
19 


290 LECTURE V. 


ceived except in opposition to at least possible 
error. If there is no truth, the human reason, 
which seeks truth by a natural impulse belonging 
to its very essence, as the magnetized needle 
seeks the pole,—reason, I say, is a chimera. 
The truth which reason seeks is an exact rela- 
tion of human thought to the reality of the world. 
If the search for this relation is chimerical, the 
two terms, mind, and the world, may be illusions. 
A fugitive illusion in presence of an infinite illu- 
sion: there is all. You see that these thoughts 
hang together with rigorous precision. The dark- 
ness is becoming visible to us, or, in other words, 
we are acquiring a perfect understanding of the 
origin and developments of the absurdity. Put 
God aside, the law of our will, the warrant of our 
thought; deify human nature; and a fatal current 
will run you aground twice over —on the shores 
of moral absurdity, and on those of intellectual 
absurdity. These sad shipwrecks are set before 
our eyes in striking examples; it has been easy 
to indicate their cause. 

The consideration of the beautiful would give 
occasion to analogous observations. ‘The human 
mind becoming the object of our adoration, we 
must give up judging it in every particular, and 


ey 


HUMANITY. 291 


suppress the rules of the ideal in art, as those of 
morals in the conduct, and truth in the intellect. 
We must form a system of esthetics which ac- 
cepts all, and finds equally legitimate whatever 
affords recreation to the Humanity-God, in the 
great variety of its tastes. Then high aspirations 
are extinguished, the beautiful gives place to the 
ageeable; and since the ugly and misshapen 
please a vicious taste, room must be made for the 
ugly in the Pantheon of beauty. Art despoiled 
of its crown becomes the sad, and often the 19¢n0- 
ble slave of the tastes and caprices of the public. 
I do not insist further. The pretension of the 
worshippers of humanity is to: make their con- 
science wide enough to accept all, and to have 
their intellect broad enough to understand all. 
They explain all, except these three small par- 
ticulars —the conscience, the heart, and the rea- 
son. Goodness and truth avenge themselves in 
the end for the long contempt cast upon them; 
and the first punishment those suffer who accept 
all, in the hope of understanding all, is no 
longer to understand what constitutes the life of 
humanity. 

Let us not, Sirs, be setting up altars to the 
human mind; for an adulterous incense stupefies 


292 LECTURE V. 


it, and ends by destroying it. Man is great, he 
is sublime, with immortal hope in his heart, and 
the divine aureole around his brow; but that he 
may preserve his greatness, let us leave him in 
his proper place. Let us leave to him the strug- 
gles which make his glory, that condemnation of 
his own miseries which does him honor, the tears 
shed over his faults which are the most unexcep- 
tionable testimony to his dignity. Let us leave 
him tears, repentance, conflict, and hope ; but let 
us not deify him; for, no sooner shall he have 
said, “I am God,” than, deprived that instant of 
all his blessings, he shall find himself naked and 
spoiled. | 

Before they deified man, the pagans at least 
transfigured him by placing him in Olympus. 
At this day, it is humanity as it is upon earth that 
is proposed to our adoration, humanity with its 
profound miseries and its fearful defilements. 
They seek to throw a veil over the mad audacity 
of this attempt, by telling us of the progress which 
is to bring about, by little and little, the realiza- 
tion of our divinity. But, alas! our history is 
long already, and no reasonable induction justi- 
fies the vague hopes of heated imaginations. 
Great progress is being effected, but none which 


HUMANITY. 293 


gives any promise that the profound needs of our 
nature can ever be satisfied in this life. Charity 
has appeared on the earth ; but there are still poor 
amongst us, and it seems that there always will 
be. A breath of justice and humanity has pene- 
trated social institutions; still politics have not 
become the domain of perfect truth and of abso- 
lute justice, and there seems small likelihood that 
they ever will. Industry has given birth to mar- 
vels ; we devour space in these days, but we shall 
never go so fast that suffering and death will not 
succeed in overtaking us. The great sources of 
grief are not dried up; the song of our poets 
causes still the chords of sorrow to vibrate as in 
the days of yore. Progress is being accom- 
plished, sure witness of a beneficent Hand which 
is guiding humanity in its destinies; but every- 
thing tells us that the soil of our planet will be 
always steeped in tears, that the atmosphere 
which envelops us will always resound with the 
vibrations of sorrow. Far as our view can stretch 
itself, we foresee a suffering humanity, which 
will not be able to find peace, joy, and hope, ex- 
cept in the expectation of new heavens and a new 
earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 

If there be no God above humanity, no eternity 


294 LECTURE V. 


above time, no divine world higher than our 
present place of sojourn; if our profoundest de- 
sires are to be for ever deceived; if the cries we 
raise to heaven are never to be heard; if all our 
hope is a future in which we shall be no more; if 
humanity as we know it is the perfection of the 
universe; if all this is so, then indeed the answer 
to the universal enigma is illusion and falsehood. 
Then, before the monster of destiny which brings 
us into being only to destroy us, which creates in 
our breast the desire of happiness only to deride 
our miseries; in view of that starry vault which 
_ speaks to us of the infinite, while yet there is no 
infinite; in presence of that lying nature which 
adorns itself with a thousand symbols of immor- 
tality, while yet there is no immortality ; in pres- 
ence of all these deceptions, man may be allowed 
to curse the day of his birth, or to abandon him- 
self to the intoxication of thoughtless pleasure. 
But, a secret instinct tells us that wretchedness is 
a disorder, and thoughtless pleasure a degrada- 
tion. Let us have confidence in this deep utter- 
ance of our nature. Good, truth, beauty descend 
as rays of streaming light into the shadows of our 
existence ; let us follow them with the eye of faith 
to the divine focus from whence they proceed. 


HUMANITY. 295 


All is fleeting, all is disappearing incessantly be- 
neath our steps; but our soul is not staggered at 
this swift lapse of all things, only because she 
carries in herself the pledges of a changeless 
eternity. “The ephemeral spectator of an eter- 
nal spectacle, man raises for a moment his eyes 
to heaven, and closes them again for ever; but 
during the fleeting instant which is granted to 
him, from all points of the sky and from the 
bounds of the universe, sets forth from every 
world a consoling ray and strikes his upward 
gaze, announcing to him that between that meas- 
ureless space and himself there exists a close 
relation, and that he is allied to eternity.” * 
And are these sublime Pressentiments only 
dreams after all? Dreams! Know you not that 
our dreams create nothing, and that they are 
never anything else than confused reminiscences 
and fantastic combinations of the realities of our 
waking consciousness? What then is that mys- 
terious waking during which we have seen the 
eternal, the infinite, the perfection of goodness, 
the fulness of joy, all those sublime images which 
come to haunt our spirit during the dream of life? 
Recollections of our origin! foreshadowings of 


* Xavier de Maistre. 


296 LECTURE V. 


our destinies! While then all below is transitory, 
and is escaping from us in a ceaseless flight, let — 
us abandon ourselves without fear to these in- 
stincts of the soul — | 


As a bird, if it light on a sprig too slight 
The feathery freight to bear, 

Yet, conscious of wings, tosses fearless, and sings, 
Then drops — on the buoyant air.* 


. 


TS ee 


* Soyons comme I’ oiseau posé pour un instant 
Sur des rameaux trop fréles, 
Qui sent ployer la branche et qui chante pourtant, 
Sachant qu’ il a des ailes. — Vicror Huco. 


LECTURE VI. 


Talla lly. Cle Lo ANT. Cy lie 


(At Geneva, 4th Dec. 1863.— At Lausanne, 27th Jan. 1864.) 


GENTLEMEN, 

Man is not a simple product of na- 
ture ; in vain does he labor to degrade himself by 
desiring to find the explanation of his spiritual 
being in matter brought gradually to perfection. 
Man is not the summit and principle of the uni- 
verse ; in vain does he labor to deify himself. He 
is great only by reason of the divine rays which 
inform his heart, his conscience, and his reason. 
From the moment that he believes himself to be 
the source of light, he passes into night. When 
thought has risen from nature up to man, it 
must needs fall again, if its impetus be not strong 
enough to carry it on to God. These assertions 
do but translate the great facts of man’s intellect- 
ual history. “There is no nation so barbarous,” 


298 LECTURE VI. 


said Cicero,* “there are no men so savage as not 
to have some tincture of religion. Many there 
are who form false notions of the gods; . . ~ but 
all admit the existence of a divine power and 
nature. . . . Now, in any matter whatever, the 
consent of all nations is to be reckoned a law of 
nature.” No discovery has diminished the value 
of these words of the Roman orator. In the most 
degraded portions of human society, there re- 
mains always some vestige of the religious senti- 
ment. The knowledge of the Creator comes to 
us from the Christian tradition; but the idea, 
more or less vague, of a divine world is found 
wherever there are men. 

Cicero brings forward this universal consent as 
a very strong proof of the existence of the gods. 
The supporters of atheism dispute the value of 
this argument. They say: “General opinion 
proves nothing. How many fabulous legends 
have been set up by the common belief into his- 


* Firmissimum hoc afferri videtur, cur deos esse credamus, 
quod nulla gens tam fera, nemo omnium tam sit immanis, 
cujus mentem non imbuerit deorum opinio. Multi de diis 
prava sentiunt, id enim vitioso more effici solet; omnes tamen 
esse vim et naturam divinam arbitrantur. . . . Omni autem 
in re consentio omnium gentium, lex nature putanda est. — 
Tuscul. i. 13. 


THE CREATOR. 299 


toric verities! | All mankind believed for a long 
time that the sun revolved about the earth. Truth 
makes way in the world only by contradicting 
opinions generally received. The faith of the 
greater number is rather a mark of error than a 
sign of truth.” This objection rests upon a con- 
fusion of ideas. Humanity has no testimony to 
render upon scientific questions, the solution of 
which is reserved for patient study ; but humanity 
bears witness to its own nature. The universality 
of religion proves that the search after the divine 
is, as said the Roman orator, a law of nature. 
When therefore we rise from matter to man, and 
from man to God, we are not going in an arbi- 
trary road, but are advancing according to the 
law of nature ascertained by the testimony of 
humanity. It needs a mind at once very daring 
and very frivolous not to feel the importance of 
this consideration. 

In our days atheism is being revived. In going 
over in your memory the symptoms of this revival, 
as we have pointed them out to you, you will per-_ 
ceive that the direct and primitive negation of 
God is comparatively rare; but that what is fre- 
quently attempted is, if I may venture so to speak, 
to effect the subtraction of God. Any religious 


300 LECTURE VI. 


theory whatever is put aside as inadmissible, and 
with some such remarks as these : “ How is it that 
real sciences are formed? By observation on the 
one hand, and by reasoning on the other. By 
observation, and reasoning applied to observa- 
tion, we obtain the science of ‘nature and the 
science of humanity. But do we wish to rise 
above nature and humanity? We fail of all basis 
of observation; and reason works in a vacuum. 
There is therefore no possible way of reaching 
to God. Is God an object of experience? No. 
Can God be demonstrated @ przor7 by syllogisms? 
No. The idea of God therefore cannot be estab- 
lished, as answering to a reality, either by the 
way of experience or by the way of reasoning ; it 
is a mere hypothesis. We do not, however, it is 
added, in our view of the matter, pretend (Heaven 
forbid!) to exclude the sentiment of the Divine 
from the soul, nor the word God from fine poetry. 
We accept religious thoughts as dreams full of 
charm. But is it a question of reality? then God 
is an hypothesis, and hypothesis has no admis- 
sion into the science of realities.” 

These ideas place those who accept them in 
a position which is not without its advantages. 
When a man of practical mind says with a smile, 


THE CREATOR. 301 


“Do you happen to believe in God?” one may 
reply to him, smiling in turn, “ Have I said that 
God is a real Being?” And if a religious man 
asks, “Are you falling then into atheism?” one 
may assume an indignant tone, and say : “ We have 
never denied God: whoever says we have is a 
slanderer!” So God remains, for the necessities 
of poetry and art. But as we cannot know either 
what He is, or whether He is, real life goes on in 
complete and entire independence of Him. The 
taking up of this position with regard to religion 
may, in certain cases, be a literary artifice. In 
other cases it is seriously done. There are cer- 
tain natures of extreme delicacy, which, touched 
by the breath of modern scepticism, have lost all 
positive faith ; but their better aspirations, and an 
instinctive love of purity, guard and direct them, 
in the absence of all belief, and they do not deny 
that which they believe nolonger. Such a mind is 
in an exceptional position. Is it yours? and would 
you preserve it? Keep a solitary path, and do 
not seek to communicate your ideas to others. 
Contact with the public, and such an unfolding — 
even of your own thoughts as would be required 
in carrying on a work of proselytism, would place 
you under the empire of those laws which govern 


302 LECTURE VI. 


the human mind in these matters. Now what 
are these laws? A poet has already answered 
for us this question : 


En présence du Ciel, il faut croire ou nier.= 


A famous writer expands the same thought as 
follows: “ Doubt about things which it highly 
concerns us to know,” says Jean-Jacques Rous- 
seau, “is a condition which does too great vio- 
lence to the human mind; nor does it long bear 
up against it, but in spite of itself comes to a de- 
cision one way or another, and likes better to be 
mistaken than to believe nothing.” + Such is the 
law. We have met with the pretension to main- 
tain the mind independent of God, without either 
denying or asserting His existence, and we have 
seen how completely this pretension fails in the 
presence of facts. The sceptic makes vain efforts 
to continue in a state of doubt, but the ground 
fails him, and he slips into negation: he affirms 
that humanity has been mistaken, and that God 
is not. But neither does this negation succeed 
any the more in keeping its ground; it strikes too 


* In presence of Heaven, we must believe or deny. See 
Lecture III. 
+ Profession de fot du vicaire Savoyard. 


THE CREATOR. 303 


violently against all the instincts of our nature. 
The human mind is under an imperious necessity 
to worship something ; if God fails it, it sets itself 
to adore nature or humanity; atheism is trans- 
formed into idolatry. Recollect the destinies of 
the critical school and of the positive philosophy ! 
Let us now examine, with serious attention, that 
attempt to e/zmznate God which is the starting- 
point in this course along which the mind is hur- 
ried so fatally. 

God is not, I grant, an object of experience. I 
grant it at least in this sense, that God is not an 
object of sensible experience. ‘The experience of 
God (if I may be allowed the expression), the 
‘feeling of His action upon the soul, is not a phe- 
nomenon open to the observation of all, and apart 
from determined spiritual conditions. In order 
to be sensible of the action of God, we must draw 
near to Him. In order to draw near to Him, we 
must, if not believe with firm faith in His exist- 
ence, at least not deny Him. The captives of 
Plato’s cavern can have no experience of light, 
so long as they heap their raillery on those who - 
speak to them of the sun. I grant again that 
God cannot possibly be the object of a demonstra- 
tion such as the science of geometry requires; I 


304 LECTURE VI. 


erant it fully, I have already said so. Every 
man who reasons, affirms God in one sense ; and 
the foundation of all reasoning cannot be the con- 
clusion of ademonstration. God therefore, in the 
view of science formed according to our ordinary 
methods, is, I grant, an hypothesis. And here, 
Gentlemen, allow me a passing word of explana- 
tion. 

When I say that God is an hypothesis, I run 
the risk of exciting, in many of you, feelings 
of astonishment not unmixed with pain. But I 
must beg you to remember the nature of these 
lectures. We are here far from the calm retire- 
- ment of the sanctuary, and from such words of 


solemn exhortation as flow from the lips of the 


religious teacher. I have introduced you to the 
ardent conflicts of contemporary thought, and 
into the midst of the clamors of the schools. 
The soul which is seeking to hold communion 
with God, and so from their fountain-head to be 
filled with strength and joy, has something better 
to do than to be listening to such discourses as 
these. Solitude, prayer, a calm activity pursued 
under the guidance of the conscience, — these are 
the best paths for such a soul, and the discussions 
in which we are now engaged are not perhaps 


_ _ —- 


THE CREATOR. 305 


altogether free from danger for one who has re- 
mained hitherto undisturbed in the first simplicity 
of his faith. But we are not masters of our own 
ways, and the circumstances of the present times 
impose upon us special duties. The barriers 
which separate the school and the world are 
everywhere thrown down. Everywhere shreds of 
philosophy, and very often of bad philosophy, — 
scattered fragments of theological science, and 
very often of a deplorable theological science, — 
are insinuating themselves into the current litera- 
ture. There is not a literary review, there is 
scarcely a political journal, which does not speak 
on occasion, or without occasion, of the prob- 
lems relating to our eternal interests. The most 
sacred beliefs are attacked every day in the 
organs of public opinion. At such a juncture, 
can men who preserve faith in their own soul 
remain like dumb dogs, or keep themselves shut 
up in the narrow limits of the schools? Assuredly 
not. We must.descend to the common ground, 
and fight with equal weapons the great battles of 
thought. For this purpose it is necessary to — 
make use of terms which may alarm some con- 
sciences, and to state questions which run the risk 
of startling sincerely religious persons. But there 


20 


306 LECTURE VI. 


is no help for it, if we are to combat the adversa- 
ries on their own ground ; and because it is thus 
only that, while we startle a few, we can prove to 
all that the torrent of negations is but a passing 
rush of waters, which, fret as they may in their 
channel, shall be found to have left not so much as 
a trace of their passage upon the Rock of Ages. 

I now therefore resume my course of argument. 
God is neither an object of experience, nor yet of 
demonstration properly so called. In the view 
of science, as it is commonly understood, of 
science which follows out the chain of its deduc- 
tions, without giving attention to the very foun- 
~ dations of all the work of the reason, — God, that 
chief of all realities for a believing heart, that ex- 
perience of every hour, that evidence superior to 
all proof, God is an hypothesis. I grant it. 
Hence it is inferred that God has no place in 
science, for that hypothesis has no place in a 
science worthy of the name. But this I deny; 
and in support of this denial I proceed to show 
that the hypothesis which it is pretended to get 
quit of, is the generating principle of all human 
knowledge. 

Whence does science proceed? Does it result 
from mere experience? No. What does expe- 


THE CREATOR. 307 


rience teach us when quite alone ? Nothing. 
Experience, separated from all element of reason, 
only reveals to us our own sensations. This, a 
Scotch philosopher, Hume, has proved to demon- 
stration, — a demonstration which constitutes his 
glory. It is easy, without having even a smat- 
tering of philosophy, to understand quite well 
that science is formed by thought. Now, if we 
did not possess the faculty of thinking, it would 
not be given to us by experience. Thought does 
not enter by the eye or the ear. Imagine a liv- 
ing body not possessed of reason: its eye will re- 
flect objects. like a mirror, its tympanum will 
vibrate to the undulations of the air; but it will 
have no thoughts, and will know nothing. 

Is science formed by pure reason? No. No 
one can say what pure reason is, for the exercise 
of our thought is connected indissolubly with ex- 
perience. But, without pausing at this consider- 
ation, let us ask what pure reason can do, if 
deprived of all objects of experience? One thing 
only, namely, take cognizance of itself. Now — 
the reason, in taking cognizance of itself, only 
creates logic, that is to say, the theory of the laws 
of knowledge. Some philosophers, to be sure, 
have undertaken to prove that reason, by dint of 


308 LECTURE VI. 


self-contemplation, might arrive at the knowledge 
of all things. They have maintained that all the 
secrets of the universe are contained in our 
thought, and that by just reasoning one may form 
the science of astronomy without looking at the 
stars, and write the history of the human race 
without taking the trouble to search laboriously 
into the annals of the past. But these attempts 
to construct facts, instead of observing them, have 
succeeded too ill to merit very serious attention. 
Science does not proceed therefore either from 
pure experience or from pure reason; whence 
does it really come? From the encounter of ex- 
“perience and of reason. Man observes, and he 
ascertains that facts are governed according to in- 
telligent design. He creates mathematics, and dis- 
covers that the phenomena of the heavens and the 
earth are ruled according to the laws of the cal- 
culus. His thought meets in the facts with traces 
of athought similar to hisown. Ifany one of you 
doubts this, I once more appeal to the almanac. 
Science, then, has birth only from a meeting 
of experience with reason; how is this meet- 
ing effected? The whole question of the origin 
of science is here. ‘This encounter is not neces- 
sary; it does not result simply from perseverance 


THE CREATOR. 309 


in observation. The encounter of mind and of 
facts constitutes a discovery. The thought which 
has governed nature may remain long veiled from 
our mind. All at once perhaps the veil is lifted, 
and the thought of man meets and recognizes 
itself in the phenomena which it is contemplating. 
We encounter in this case the exercise of a spe- 
cial faculty, which is neither the faculty of observ- 
ing nor the faculty of reasoning, but the faculty 
of discovering. When a man possesses it to a 
certain degree, we call him a man of genius. 
Genius, or the faculty of discovering, is the gen- 
erating principle of science. Still, strange to say, 
this principle is scarcely pointed out by a great 
number of logicians. They develop at length 
the rules of observation and the rules of reasoning ; 
and it seems that, in their idea, the conjunction of 
reason and experience is effected all alone and 
of necessity. I taught logic myself in this way 
for twenty years, until one day, thinking better 
upon the subject, I was obliged to say to myself 
(forgive me this rather trival quotation) : 
Tu mn’ avais oublié qu’ un point: 


C’ était d’ éclairer ta lanterne.* 


* Thou hadst only forgotten one point, 
And that was, to light thy lantern. 


310 LECTURE VI. 


The meeting together of the understanding and 
of facts is a discovery; and discovery depends 
upon a faculty sung by poets, admired by man- 
kind, and too little noticed by logicians — genius. 
Genius has for its characteristic a sudden illumina- 
tion of the mind, a gratuitous gift and one which 
cannot be purchased. But let us hasten to supply 
a necessary explanation. Genius is a primitive 
fact, a gift; but the work of genius has condi- 
tions, or rather a condition—labor. Labor does 
not replace genius, but genius does not dispense 
with labor ; nature only delivers up her secrets to 
those who observe her with long patience. New- 
‘ton was asked one day how he had found out the 
system of the universe. He replied with a sub- 
lime naiveté: “ By thinking continually about it.” 
He so pointed out the condition of every great 
discovery ; but he forgot the cause — the peculiar 
nature of his own intellect. It was necessary to 
be always pondering the motions of the stars; but 
it was necessary moreover to be Isaac Newton. 
So many had thought on the subject, as long per- 
haps as he, and had not made the discovery. 

Labor, the condition of discoveries, should have 
as its effect to recognize the methods really ap- 
propriate to the nature of the inquiries, and to 


THE CREATOR. 311 


keep the mind well informed in existing science. 
In fact, every scientific discovery supposes a 
series of previous discoveries which have brought 
the mind to the point at which it is possible to see 
something new. For this reason it is that a dis- 
covery often presents itself to two or three minds 
at once, when there are found, at the same epoch, 
two or three minds endowed with the same power. 
They see all together because the onward progress 
of science has brought them to the same summit: 
this is the condition; and because they have the 
same power of vision: this is the cause. There is 
therefore a method for putting ourselves on the road 
to discovery, but no method for making the dis- 
covery itself. The man of genius sees where 
others do not see; and when he has seen, every- 
body sees after him. If, furnished with Gyges’ 
ring, you could gain access to the studies of sa- 
vants at the moment when a great discovery has 
just been made, you would see more than one of 
them striking his forehead and exclaiming : “ Fool 
that I was! how could I help seeing it? it was so 
simple.” ‘Truth appears simple when it has been 
discovered. 

Discovery therefore, which has labor for its 
condition, is the principle of the progress of 


312 LECTURE VI. 


science. Under what form does a discovery 
present itself to the mind of its author? As a 
supposition, or, which is the same thing, as an 
hypothesis. Hypothesis is the sole process by 
which progress in science is effected. If we sup- 
posed nothing, we should know nothing. In vain 
should we look at the sky and the earth to all 
eternity, our eye would never read the laws of as- 
tronomy in the stars of heaven, nor the laws of 
life upon the bark of trees or in the entrails of 
animals. This is true even of mathematics. ‘The 
contemplation, prolonged indefinitely, of the se- 
ries of numbers, or of the forms of space, would 
‘produce neither arithmetic nor geometry, if the 
human mind did not suppose relations between 
the numbers and the lines, which it can only 
demonstrate after it has supposed them. ‘The 
conditions are very clearly seen which have pre- 
pared and, made possible a fruitful supposition, 
but the hypothesis does not itself follow of any 
necessity. It appears like a flash of light passing 
suddenly through the mind. 

The carpenter’s saw opens a plank from end to 
end on the sole conditions of labor and time; but 
the discovery of truth preserves always a sudden 
and unforeseen character. Archimedes leaps from 


THE CREATOR. 313 


a bath and rushes through the streets of Syracuse, 
crying out, “I have found it!” Why? The flash 
of genius has visited him unexpectedly. Pythag- 
oras discovers a geometrical theorem; and he 
offers, itis said, a sacrifice to the gods, in testi- 
mony of his gratitude. He thought therefore, 
according to the fine remark of Malebranche, 
that labor and attention are a silent prayer which 
we address to the Master of truth: the labor is a 
prayer, and the discovery is an answer granted 
to it. 

When this wholly spontaneous character of dis- 
covery is not recognized, and when it is thought 
that the observation of facts naturally produces 
their explanation, it must needs be granted that a 
discovery is confirmed by the very fact that it is 
made. But this is by no means the case. Hy- 
pothesis does not carry on its brow, at the mo- 
ment of its birth, the certain sign of its truth. A 
flash of light crosses the mind of the savant; but 
he must enter on a course, often a long course, of 
study, in order to know whether it is a true light, 
or a momentary glare. Every supposition sug- 
gested by observation must be confirmed by its 
agreement with the data of experience. Let us 
listen to a great discoverer — Kepler. He is giv- 


314 LECTURE VI. 


ing an account of the discovery of one of the laws 
which have immortalized his name. 

* After I had found the real dimensions of the 
orbits, thanks to the observations of Brahe and 
the sustained effort of a long course of labor, I at 
length discovered the proportion of the periodic 
times to the extent of these orbits. Andif you 
would like to know the precise date of the dis- 
covery, — it was on the eighth day of March in 
this year 1618 that, — first of all conceived in my 
mind, then awkwardly essayed by calculations, 
rejected in consequence as false, then reproduced 
on the fifteenth of May with fresh energy, —it rose 
‘at last above the darkness of my understanding, 
so fully confirmed by my labor of seventeen years 
upon Brahe’s observations, and by my own med- 
itations perfectly agreeing with them, that I 
thought at first I was dreaming, and making 
some petitio principit; but there is no more doubt 
about it: it is a very certain and very exact prop- 
osition.” * 

All the logic of discoveries is laid down in 
these lines; and these lines are a testimony ren- 
dered by one of the most competent of witnesses. 
You see in them the conditions of a good hypoth- 


* Hlarmonices mundi libri quingue. 


THE CREATOR. 315 


esis: Kepler has long studied the phenomena of 
which he wishes to find the law; he has studied 
them by himself, and by means of the discoveries 
of his predecessor Brahe. The law has presented 
itself to his mind at a given moment, on the eighth 
of March, 1618. But he does not yet know 
whether it is a true light, or a deceptive gleam. 
He seeks the confirmation of his hypothesis; he 
does not find it, because he makes a mistake, and 
he rejects his idea as useless. The idea returns; 
a new course of labor confirms it; and so the 
hypothesis becomes a law, a certain proposi- 
tion. 

Such is the regular march of thought. An hy- 
pothesis has no right to be brought forward until 
it has passed into the condition of a law, by being 
duly confirmed. There are minds, however, en- 
dowed with a sort of divination, which feel as by 
instinct the truth of a discovery, even before it 
has been confirmed. It is told of Copernicus, 
that having discovered, or re-discovered, the true 
system of planetary motion, he encountered an 
opponent who said to him: “If your system were 
true, Venus would have phases like the moon; 
now she has none, and therefore your system is 
false. What have you to reply?” —“I have no | 


316 LECTURE VI. 


> 


reply to make,” said Copernicus, (the objection 
Was a serious one in fact) ; “but God will grant 
that the answer shall be found.” * Galileo ap- 
peared, and by means of the telescope it was as- 
certained that Venus has phases like the moon; 
—the confidence of Copernicus was justified. 
The scientific career of M. Ampére, the illustrious 
natural philosopher, supplies an analogous fact. 
Trusting, like Copernicus, to a kind of intuition 
of truth, he read one day to the Academy of 
sciences the complete description of an experi- 
ment which he had never made. He made it 
subsequently, and the result answered completely 
to his anticipations. Genius is here raised to the 
second power, since it possesses at once the gift 
of discovery and the just presentiment of its con- 
firmation ; but these are exceptional cases, and in 
general we must say, with Mithridates, that — 


. - . - To be approved as true 
Such projects must be proved, and carried through.t 


* The authenticity of this reply is disputed; M. Arago gives 
it in different terms; but the question is of small consequence 
here as one of historical criticism, my object being not to es- 
tablish a fact, but to put an idea in a strong light by means of 
an example. 

+ - - .- Pour étre approuvés 
De semblables projets veulent étre achevés. 


ee 


THE CREATOR. 317 


We would encourage no one to attempt adven- 
tures so perilous, but would call to mind in a 
great example what is the regular march of 
science. Newton, after he had discovered the 
law which regulates the motions of the heavens, 
sought the confirmation of it in an immense series 
of calculations. A true ascetic of science, he im- 
posed on himself a regimen as severe as that of a 
Trappist monk, in order that his life might be 
wholly concentrated upon the operations of the 
understanding ; and it was not until after fifteen 
months of persistent labor that he exclaimed: “I 
have discovered it! My calculations have really 
encountered the march of the stars. Glory to 
God! who has permitted us to catch a glimpse 
of the skirts of His ways!” And astronomy, 
placed upon a wider and firmer basis, went for- 
ward with new energy. 

It is thus that the human mind acquires knowl- 
edge. How then does hypothesis come to be 
made light of ? How can it be seriously said that 
we have excluded hypothesis from the sphere of 
science, whereas the moment the faculty of sup- 
posing should cease to be in exercise, the march 
of science would be arrested; since, except a 
small number of principles the evidence of which 


318 LECTURE VI. 


is immediate, all the truths we possess are only 
suppositions confirmed by experiment? ‘The 
reason is here: Our mind forms a thousand dif- 
ferent suppositions at its own will and fancy; 
and it shrinks from that studious toil which alone 
puts it in a position to make fruitful suppositions. 
We are for ever tempted to be guessing, instead 
of setting ourselves, by patient observations, on 
the road to real discoveries. It is therefore with 
good reason that theories hastily built up have 
been condemned, and Lord Chancellor Bacon 
was right in thinking that the human mind re- 
quires lead to be attached to it, and not wings. 
Hence the inference has been drawn that the sim- 
plest plan would be to cut the wings of thought, 
without reflecting that thenceforward it would 
continue motionless. Because some had abused 
hypothesis, others must conclude that we could 
do without it altogether. 

Trivial and premature suppositions have there- 
fore discredited hypothesis, by encumbering sci- 
ence with a crowd of vain imaginations; but this 
encumbrance would have been of small impor- — 
tance but for the obstinacy with which false theo- — 
ries have too often been maintained against the 
evidence of facts. If Ampére had found his ex- | 


THE CREATOR. 319 


periment fail, and had still continued to maintain 
his statements, he would not have given. proof of 
a happy audacity, but of a ridiculous obstinacy. 
Genius itself makes mistakes, and experience 
alone distinguishes real laws from mere freaks of 
our thought. We have maintained the rights 
of reason in the spontaneous exercise of the fac- 
ulty of discovery; but let us beware how we 
ignore the rights of experience. It alone prepares 
discoveries; it alone can confirm them. A sys- 
tem, however well put together, is convicted of 
error by the least fact which really contradicts it. 
A Greek philosopher was demonstrating by spe- 
cious arguments that motion is impossible. Dio- 
genes was one of his auditory, and he got up and 
began to walk: the answer was conclusive. You 
remember, if you have read Walter Scott, the 
learned demonstration of the antiquary who is 
_ settling the date of a Roman or Celtic ruin, I for- 
get which; and the intervention of the beggar, 
who has no archeological system, but who has 
seen the edifice in question both built and fall to 
decay. Reason as much as you like; if your 
reasonings do not accord with facts, you will 
have woven spider’s webs, of admirable fineness 
perhaps, but wanting in solidity. 


3320 LECTURE VI. 


It is time to sum up these lengthened consider- 
ations. Science does not originate solely from ex- 
periment, nor does it proceed solely from reason 5 
it results from the meeting together of experience 
and reason. Experience prepares the discovery, 
genius makes it, experience confirms it. What 
distinguishes the sciences is not the process of in- 
vention, which is everywhere the same; but the 
process of control over supposed truths. A math- 
ematical discovery is confirmed by pure reason- 
ing. A physical discovery is confirmed by sen- 
sible observation joined with calculation. A 
discovery in the order of morals is confirmed by | 
observation of the facts of consciousness. ‘There- 
fore it is that between the physical and moral 
sciences there exists a broad line of demarcation. 
Moral facts have not less certainty than physical 
phenomena ; but moral facts falling under the in- 
fluence of liberty, all men cannot perceive them 
equally under all conditions. An optical experi- 
ment presents itself to the eyes, and all the spec- 
tators see it alike, if at least they have one and 
the same visual organization; but a case of moral 
experience has a personal character, and is only 
communicated to another person on condition that 
he puts faith in the testimony of his fellow. In 


THE CREATOR. 321 


this order of things a man can observe directly 
only what he concurs in producing. With this 
reservation, we may say that the control of moral 
truths is made by experience like that of physi- 
cal truths. In all departments of knowledge, a 
thought may be held as true when it accounts 
for facts. | 

And so, Gentlemen, we conclude that every 
scientific truth is, in its origin, a supposition of 
the mind, the result of which is to produce the 
meeting together of experience and reason, and 
so to permit the rational reconstruction of the 
facts. 

Every system is shown to be at fault by facts, 
if facts contradict it. 

When a system explains the facts, we hold it 
as proved just to the extent to which it explains 
them. This accordance of our thought with the 
nature of things is the mark of what we call 
truth. 

If you grant me these premises, my demon- 
stration is completed, and it only remains for me 
to draw my conclusions. 

It is said that the idea of God’can have no place 
in a serious science, because this idea comes 


neither from experience nor from reason; that it is 
21 


RO9 LECTURE VI. 


only an hypothesis, and that hypothesis has no 
place in science. I reply, grounding my answer 
on the preceding reasonings: No science is 
formed otherwise than by means of hypothesis. 
For the solution of the universal problem there 
exists in the world an hypothesis, proposed to all 
by tradition, and which bears in particular the 
names of Moses and of Jesus Christ. This hy- 
pothesis has the right to be examined. If it ex- 
plains the facts, it must be held for true. The 
idea of God comes therefore within the regular 
compass of science; the attempt to exclude it is 
sophistical. 
_ Let us separate the idea of God from the whole 
body of Christian doctrine of which it forms part, 
in order that we may give it particular considera- 
tion. What is this hypothesis which bears the 
names of Moses and Jesus Christ? It is that the 
principle of the universe is the Eternal and Infi- 
nite Being. His power is the cause of all that 
exists; the consciousness of His infinite power 
constitutes His infinite intelligence. In Himself, 
He is He who zs; in His relation with the world, 
He is the absolute cause, the Creator. This ex- 
planation of the universe is not the privilege of a 
few savants; it is taught and proposed to all; 


THE CREATOR. 325 


and this is no reason why we should despise it. 
If we further observe that this thought has reno- 
vated the world, that it upholds all our civiliza- 
tion, that thousands of our fellow-creatures raise 
their voice to tell us that itis only from this source 
they have drawn peace, light, and happiness, we 
shall understand perhaps that contempt would be 
foolish, and that everything on the contrary in- 
vites us to examine with the most serious atten- 
tion an hypothesis which offers itself to us under 
conditions so exceptional. 

The hypothesis is stated. We must now submit 
it to the test of facts. Where shall we find the 
elements of its confirmation ? Everywhere, since 
it is the first cause of all things which is in ques- 

tion: we shall find them in nature and in human- 
ity; in the motions of the stars as they sweep 
through the depths of space, and in the rising of 
the sap which nourishes a blade of grass; in the 
revolutions of empires, and in the simplest ele- 
ments of the life of one individual. There is no 
science of God; but every science, every study 
must terminate at that sacred Name. I shall not 
undertake, therefore, to enumerate all the confirm- 
ations of the thought which makes of the Creator 
the principle of the universe: to recount all the 


324 LECTURE VI. 


proofs of the infinite Being would require an eter- 
nal discourse. We have stammered forth a few 
of the words of this endless discourse, by showing 
that, without God, the understanding, the con- 
science, and the heart lose their support and fall : 
this formed the subject of our second lecture. 
We saw further that reason makes fruitless at- 
tempts to find the universal principle in the objects _ 
of our experience —nature and humanity. Let 
us follow up, although we shall not be able to 
complete it, the study of this inexhaustible subject, 
by showing that the idea of the Creator alone an- 
swers to the demands of the philosophic reason. 
Philosophy, in the highest acceptation of the 
term, is the search after a solution for the univer- 
sal problem the terms of which may be stated as 
follows: Experience reveals to us that the world 
is composed of manifold and diverse beings; and, 
to come at once to the great division, there are in 
the world bodies which we are forced to suppose 
inert, and minds which we feel to be intelligent 
and free. The universe is made up of manifold 
existences; this is quite evident, and a matter of 
experience. Reason on the other hand forces us 
to seek for unity. To comprehend, is to reduce 
phenomena to their laws, to connect effects with 


THE CREATOR. 325 


their causes, consequences with their principles ; 
it is to be always introducing unity into the diver- 
sity. All development of science would be at 
once arrested, if the mind could content itself with 
merely taking account of facts in the state of 
dispersion in which they are presented by experi- 
ence. ach particular science gathers up a mul- 
titude of facts into a small number of formule ; 
and, above and beyond particular sciences, reason 
searches for the connection of all things with one 
single cause. To determine the relation of all 
particular existences with one existence which is 
their common cause; such is the universal prob- 
lem. This problem has been very well expressed 
by Pythagoras in a celebrated formula, that of the 
Uni-multiple. In order to understand the uni- 
verse, we must rise to a unity which may account 
for the multiplicity of things and for their har- 
mony, which is unity itself maintained in diversity. 

If you well understand this thought, you will 
easily comprehend the source of the great errors 
which flow from too strong a disposition to sys- 
tematize. Men of this mind attach themselves to 
inadequate conceptions, and look for unity where 
it does not exist. The barrier which we must 
oppose to this spirit of system is the careful enu- 


326 LECTURE VI. 


meration of the facts which it forgets to notice. 
Materialism looks for unity in inert and unintelli- 
gent bodies; it suffices to oppose to it one fact — 
the reality of mind. Fatalism seeks unity in 
necessity. Point out to it that its destiny-god 
does not account for the fact of repentance, for 
example, which implies liberty, and it is enough. 
The worship of humanity forces you to exclaim 
with Pascal— A queer God, that! There is in 
the bitterness of this smile a sufficient condemna- 
tion of the doctrine. To seek for unity, is the 
foundation of all philosophy. To seek for unity 
too hastily and too low, is the source of the errors 
’ of absolute minds. Absolute minds, however great 
they may be in other respects, are weak minds, 
in that they do not succeed in preserving a clear 
view of the diversity of the facts to be explained. 
Take the problem of Pythagoras; keep hold of 
the two extremities of the chain ; never allow your- 
selves to deny the diversity of things, for that 
diversity is plainly evidenced by human experi- 
ence; beware of denying their unity, because it 
is the foundation of reason; then search and look 
through the histories of philosophy: you will find 
one hypothesis, and one only, which answers the 
requirements of the problem. It goes back, as I 


THE CREATOR. 327 


believe, to the origin of the world; it was 
glimpsed by Socrates, by Aristotle, and Plato; 
but, in its full light, it belongs only to men who 
have received the God of Moses, and who have 
studied in the school of Jesus Christ. If this hy- 
pothesis explains the facts, it is sound, for the 
property of truth is to explain, as the property of 
light is to enlighten. | 

The doctrine of the Creator can alone account 
to us for the universe, by bringing us back to its 
first cause. ‘The first cause of unity cannot be 
matter which could never produce mind; the 
first cause of unity cannot be the human mind, 
which, from the moment that it desires to take 
itself for the absolute being, is dissolved and an- 
nihilated. The unity which alone can have in 
itself the source of multiplicity, is neither matter 
nor idea, but power; power the essential charac- 
teristic of mind, and infinite, that is to say, crea- 
tive power. The Creator alone could produce 
divers beings, because He is Almighty, and 
maintain harmony between.those beings, because 
He is One. Thus is manifested an essential 
agreement between the requirements of philoso- 
phy and the religious sentiment; for religion, as 
we said at the beginning of these lectures, rests 


328 LECTURE VI. 


upon the idea of Divine power. Reason and 
faith meet together upon the lofty heights of truth. 
But let us not enter too far into the difficulties of 
philosophy. Let us confine ourselves to consid- 
erations of a less abstruse order. 

The Creator is the God of nature. All the 
visible universe is but the work of His power, 
the manifestation of His wisdom. The poet of the 
Hebrews invites to offer praise to the Most High, 
not only men of every age and of all nations, but 
the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the 
cedars of the forest, the rain and the wind, the 
hail and the tempest.* In the language of a 
‘modern poet: 


Thee, Lord, the wide world glorifies ; 
The bird upon its nest replies; 

And for one little drop of rain 

Beings Thine eye doth not disdain 
Ten thousand more repeat the strain. 


And such thoughts are not vain freaks of the 
imagination. Man, the conscious representative 
of nature, the high-priest of the universe, feels 


Ps: exiviti, 

+ Le inonde entier te ¢lorifie, 
L’ oiseau te chante sur son nid; 
Et pour une goutte de pluie 
Des milliers d’ étres t? ont beni. 


THE CREATOR. 329 


himself urged by an impulse of his heart to trans- 
late the confused murmur of the creation into a 
hymn of praise to the Infinite Being, the absolute 
Source of life, —to Him who zs, One, Eternal, — 
the first and absolute Cause of all existence. 

The Creator is the God of spirits. He is not 
only the God of humankind; “the immense city 
of God contains, no doubt, nobler citizens than 
man, in reasoning power so weak, and in affec- 
tions so poor.”* But let us speak of what is 
known to us: He is the God of humankind. 
All nations shall one day render glory to Him. 
Mighty words have resounded through the world : 
“Henceforth there is no longer either Greek or 
barbarian or Jew; but one and the same God for 
all.” The idols have begun to fall; the gods of 
the nations have been hurled from their pedestals ; 
they have fallen, they are falling, they will fall, 
until the knowledge of the only and sovereign 
Creator shall cover the earth as the waters cover 
the sea. 

The Creator shall one day be known of all His 
creatures; and in each of His creatures He will 
be the centre and the object of the whole soul; all 


* Albert de Haller. Lettres sur les vérités les plus impor- 
tantes de la révélation. Lettre 2. 


330 LECTURE VI. 


the functions of the spiritual life lead on to Him. 
What is truth, beauty, good? We have already 
replied to the question, but we will repeat our 
answer. 

To possess truth is to know God; it is to 
know Him in the work of His hands, and it 
is to know Him in His absolute power, as the 
eternal source of all that is, of all that can ever 
be, of all actual or possible truth in the mind of 
His creatures. Truth binds us to Him, “ and all 
sczence is a hymn to His glory.” * 

He is the eternal source of beauty. He it is 
who gives to the bird its song, and to the brook 
- its murmur. He it is who has established be- 
tween nature and man those mysterious relations 
which give rise to noble joys. He it is who 
opens, above and beyond nature, the prolific 
sources of art; the ideal is a distant reflection of 
His splendor. 

And goodness, again, is none other than He; 
it is His plan; it is His will in regard of spirits ; it 
is the word addressed to the free creature, which 
says to it: Behold thy place in the universal har- 
mony. 

Thus a triple ray descends from the uncreated 


* Et toute la scdence est un hymne 4 sa gloire. 


THE CREATOR. Or 


light, and before that insufferable brightness I am 
dazzled and bewildered. ‘There is no longer any 
distinction for me between profane and sacred; 
I no longer understand the difference of these 
terms. Wheresoever I meet with good, truth, 
beauty, be the man who brings them to me who 
he may, and come he whence he may, I feel that to 
despise in him that gleam, would be not only 
to be wanting to humanity, it would be to be 
wanting to my faith. If my prejudices or habits 
tend to shut up my heart or to narrow my mind, 
I hear a voice exclaiming to me: “Enlarge thy 
tent; lengthen thy cords; enlarge thy tent with- 
out measure. Be ye lift up, eternal gates, gates 
of the conscience and the heart! Let in the King 
of glory!” All truth, all beauty, all good is He. 
Where my God is, nothing is profane for me. 
To ignore any one of those rays would be to steal 
somewhat from His glory. 

Oh! the happy liberty of the heart, when it 
rests on the Author of all good and of all truth. 
But if the heart is at liberty, how well is it guarded 
too! What is the most beautiful jewel (if we 
may venture to use such language) in the im- 
mortal crown of this King of glory? Powerful, 
He created power ; free, He created liberty. And 


332 LECTURE VI. 


to the free creature, in the hour of its creation, 
He said: “Behold! thou art made in mine own 
image! my will is written in thy conscience; be- 
come a worker together with me, and realize the 
plans of my love.” And that voice —I hear it 
within myself. Ah! I know that voice well, I 
know the secret attraction which, in spite of all 
my miseries, draws me towards that which is 
beautiful, pure, holy, and says to me: This is the 
will of thy Father. But I know other voices also 
which speak within me only too loudly : the voice 
of rebellion and of cowardice, the voice of base- 
ness and ignominy. There is war in my soul. 
Enlightened by this inner spectacle, I cast my 
eyes once more over that world in which I have 
seen shining everywhere some divine rays; and 
I see that by a triple gate, lofty and wide, evil has 
entered thither, accompanied by error and deform- 
ity. Then I understand that all may become pro- 
fane; I understand that there is an erring science, 
a corrupting art, a moral system full of immo- 
rality. But these words take for me a new mean- 
ing. There is no sacred evil, there is no profane 
good; there are no sacred errors and profane 
truths. Where God is, all is holy ; where there 
is rebellion against God, all is evil. And so the 
God who is my light is my fortress also; my 


THE CREATOR. 333 


heart is strengthened while it is set at liberty, and 
I can join the ancient song of Israel : 
Jehovah is our strength and tower. 

Yes, Sirs, God is in all, because He is the uni- 
versal principle of being; but He is not in all 
after the same manner. God is in the pure heart 
by the joy which He gives to it; He is in the friv- 
olous heart by the void and the vexation which 
_urge it to seek a better destiny; He is in the cor- 
rupt heart by that merciful remorse which does 
not permit it to wander, without warning, from 
the springs of life. God makes use of all for the 
good of His creatures. He is everywhere by the 
direct manifestation of His will, except in the acts 
of rebellious liberty, and in the shadow of pain 
which follows that evil light which leads astray 
from Him. 

Having said that the idea of God the Creator 
alone satisfies the reason, and raises up, upon the 
basis of reason, man’s conscience and heart, I 
should wish to show you, in conclusion, that this 
idea renders an account of the great systems of 
error which divide the human mind between 
them. Truth bears this lofty mark, that it never 
overthrows a doctrine without causing any por- 
tion of truth which it may have contained to pass 
into its own bosom. 


334 LECTURE VI. 


What then, 
the dualism which has almost disappeared, and 
from faith in God the Creator, —are the great 
systems which share the human mind between 
them? There are two: deism and pantheism. 

What is deism? It is a doctrine which ac- 
knowledges that there is one God, the cause of 
the universe ; but a God who is in a manner with- 
drawn from His own work, and who leaves it to 
go on alone. God has regulated things in the 
mass, but not in detail, or, to employ an expres- 
sion of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (who came ata 
later period to entertain better opinions), “God is 
~like a king who governs his kingdom, but who 
does not trouble himself to ascertain whether all 


apart from declared atheism, from 


the taverns in it are good ones.” The idea of a 
general government of God which does not de- 
scend to details — such is the essence of deism. 
What is pantheism, in the ordinary meaning of 
the word? We have already said: it is a doc- 
trine which absorbs God in the universe, which 
confounds Him with nature, and makes of Him 
only the inert substance, the unconscious principle 
of the universe. These are the two great con- 
ceptions which wrestle, in the history of human 
thought, against the idea of the Creator. These 


THE CREATOR. 335 


two systems triumph easily one over the other, 
because each of them contains a portion of truth 
which is wanting to its antagonist. They cannot 
support themselves because each of them has in 
it a portion of error. This is what we must well 
understand. | 

Deism contains a portion of truth; for it main- 
tains a Creator essentially distinct from the 
Creation, or, according to an expression which 
I translate from an ancient Indian poem: “One 
single act of His created the Universe, and He 
remained Himself whole and entire.” This 
thought is true. What is the error of deism? It 
is that it makes a God like to a man who works 
upon matter existing previously to his action, and 
who puts in operation forces independent of him- 
self, and which he does nothing but employ. In 
this way a watchmaker makes a watch which 
goes afterwards without him, because the watch- 
maker only sets to work forces which have an 
independent existence, and which continue to act 
when he has ceased his labor. We work upon 
matter foreign to us. ‘The workman did not 
make matter, but only disposes of it, and he can 
never do more than modify the action of forces 
which do not proceed from his will, and have not 


B20 LECTURE VI. 


been regulated by his understanding. But the 
Being who is the cause of all cannot dispose of 
foreign forces which act afterwards by themselves, 
since there exists in His work no principle of ac- 
tion other than those which He has Himself placed 
in it. | 

Deism results therefore from a confusion be- 
tween the work of a creature placed in a preex- 
isting world, and the work of the Supreme Will 
which is in itself the single and absolute cause of 
all. It contains.an element of dualism: its God 
does not create; but organizes a world the being of 
which does not depend on him. Take what is 
' true in deism — the existence of the only God; re- 
member that the Creator is the absolute Cause of 
the universe; and the distinction between ensem- 
é/e and detail will vanish, and you will under- 
stand that God is too great that there should be 
anything small in His eyes: 

God measures not our lot by line and square: 
The grass-suspended drop of morning dew 


Reflects a firmament as vast and fair 
As Ocean from his boundless field of blue.* 


* Dieu ne mesure pas nos sorts 4 I’ étendue. 
La goutte de rosée & I’ herbe suspendue 
Y refléchit un ciel aussi vaste, aussi pur 
Que Il’ immense Océan dans ses plaines d’ azur. 
LAMARTINE. 


THE CREATOR. ey 


In other words, take what is true in deism, and 
accept all the consequences of it, and you will 
arrive at the full doctrine of the creation. 

Pantheism recognizes the omnipresence of God 
in the universe, or, if you like the terms of 
the school, the immanence of God; this is its 
portion of truth. When I open the Hindoos’ 
songs of adoration, and find therein the unlimited 
enumeration of the manifestations of God in na- 
ture, I find nothing to complain of. But when, 
in those same hymns, I see liberty denied, the 
origin of evil attributed to the Holy One, and 
man cowering before Destiny, instead of turning 
his eyes freely towards the Heavenly Father, 
then I stand only more erect and say: You forget 
that if your God is the Cause of all, He is the 
Cause of liberty. If liberty exists, evil, the re- 
volt of liberty, is not the work of the Creator. 
Your system contradicts itself. You make of 
God the universal Principle, and you are right ; 
make of Him then the Author of free wills, so 
that He will be no longer the source of evil, and 
we shall be agreed. 

Deism and pantheism therefore, pushed to their 
legitimate consequences, are transformed and 
united in the truth. And you see plainly that I 


22 


338 LECTURE VI. 


am not making, for my part, an arbitrary selec- 
tion in these systems. I am walking by one sole 
light, the light which has been given to us, and 
which serves me everywhere as a guiding clue :— 
The Lord is God, and there is no other God but 
He: 

Such, Gentlemen, is the fundamental truth on 
which rests all religion, and all philosophy capa- 
ble of accounting for facts. Such is the grand 
cause which claims all the efforts which we are 
wasting too often in barren conflicts —the cause 
of God. But doI say the truth? Is it the cause 
of God which is at stake? When a surgeon, by 
-a successful operation, has restored sight to a 
blind man, we are not wont to say that he has 
rendered a service to the sun. This cause is our 
own; it is that of society at large, it is that of fam- 
ilies, that of individuals; it is the cause which 
concerns our dignity, our happiness; it is the 
cause of all, even of those who attack it in words 
of which they do not calculate the import, and 
who, were they to succeed in banishing God from 
the public conscience, would, with us, recoil in 
terror at sight of the frightful abysses into which 
we all should fall together. 

It is time to sum up these considerations. 


THE CREATOR. 339 


Inert and unintelligent matter is not the cause 
of life and intelligence. 

Human consciences would be plunged in irre- 
mediable misery, if ever they could be persuaded 
that there is nothing superior to man. 

The universe is the work of wisdom and of 
power; it is the creation of the Infinite Mind. 
What can still be wanting to our hearts? The 
thought that God desires our good, —that He 
loves us. If itis so, we shall be able to under- 
stand that our cause is His, that He is not an 
impassible sun whose rays fall on us with indiffer- 
ence, but a Father who is moved at our sorrows, 
and who would have us find joy and peace in 
Him. This will be the subject of our next and 
concluding lecture. 


LECTURE VIL 


OMI ERA PS IE Tee LIA se 
(At Geneva, 8th Dec. 1863. — At Lausanne, 1st Feb. 1864.) 


GENTLEMEN, 

We have proposed for solution the 
problem which includes all others whatsoever — 
the problem of the universe. What are the laws 
‘which govern the universe? They are those 
which are the objects of science, taking that word 
in its largest and most general meaning. What 
is the cause of the universe? The eternal power 
of the Infinite Mind. These are the two answers 
which we have hitherto obtained, but, as we have 
explained, a study is not complete if it confine it- 
self to these two answers. When we know the law 
and the cause of an object submitted to our study, 
we further look for the end designed. ‘This is no 
freak of our fancy, but the direct result of the 
constitution of our understanding. The universe 
is the creation of God. What is the design of the 


THE FATHER. 341 


creation? I answer: the design of the creation is 
the happiness of spirits. Nature is made for the 
spiritual beings to which it offers the condition of 
their life and development; spiritual beings are 
made for felicity. 'The moving spring of infinite 
power is goodness: this is my thesis. If I suc- 
ceed in establishing it, it will follow that we shall 
in imagination see issuing from the supreme unity 
of the Infinite Being three rays: the power which 
creates the being of things; the intelligence which 
orders them; and the love which conducts them 
to their destination. It will also follow that I shall 
have justified the title under which these Lectures 
were announced: Power and wisdom are attri- 
butes of the Creator; the Father reveals Himself 
in goodness. 

What shall be our method? Can we enter into» 
the counsels of God? By what means? To place 
our understanding in the midst of the Divine con- 
sciousness, there to behold the spring of the 
determinations of the Infinite Being, were an 
attempt so far exceeding our capacity, that it is 
impossible to point out any means whatever by 
which it could be made. This would be to con- 
ceive of God in His eternal essence, independently 
of His relation to the universe, to nature, and to 


342 LECTURE VII. 


our reason. Ido not say merely that the attempt 
would be fruitless; I say that we have no means 
of attempting this metaphysical adventure. But 
might we not, in looking at the work of God, 
discern in it the evidence of its design? This is 
a process which we often follow in regard to our 
fellow-creatures. Do we wish to know the object 
which a man has in view in his labor? He may 
himself disclose that object to us directly in words, 
or we may endeavor to discover it. We watch 
him at work, and by observing the way in which 
he proceeds we sometimes come to know what his 
thoughts are, because we find ourselves in pres- 
- ence of the work of a mind, and we ourselves are 
mind. Can we in the same way, by looking at 
the universe, that grand work, succeed in discov- 
ering its end? 

The way on which we are entering raises two 
objections, which proceed from the difficulties felt 
by two classes of men of opposite views; and our 
first business will be to rid ourselves of these pre- 
liminary difficulties. 

You will never succeed, it has been said to me, 
in proving the goodness of God, because evil is in 
the world. I am not inventing, Gentlemen. A 
letter containing this challenge has been addressed 


THE FATHER. 343 


to me by one of you. It is manifest, since we 
propose to ourselves to recognize in the work the 
intention of the Worker, and since our thesis is | 
the goodness of the First Cause of the universe, 
that evil, in all its'forms, sin, pain, imperfection, 
is the main objection which can be addressed to 
us. Evilis real; it is a sad and great reality ; 
I am forward to acknowledge it. Any system 
which would prove that evil does not exist, or, 
which comes to the same thing, that evil is neces- 
sary, that good and evil in short are of the same 
nature, is an impossible, I had almost said a cul- 
pable, system. The strongest minds have worn 
themselves out in such attempts with no result 
whatever. The great Leibnitz attempted an en- 
terprise of this nature. His system consisted in 
extenuating evil as far as possible, and in pro- 
nouncing that amount of evil, of which he could 
not dissemble the existence, to be necessary. He 
failed. The strong intellectual armor of one of 
the greatest geniuses the world has ever seen was 
completely transpierced by the sharp and brilliant 
shaft of Voltaire. 

Sad reckoners of the woes which men endure, 

Sharpening the pangs ye make pretence to cure, 

Poor comforters! in your attempts I see 


Nought but the pride which feigns unreal glee! 
O mortals, of such bliss how weak the spell! 


344 LECTURE VII. 


Ye cry in doleful accents — ‘‘All is well! ”— 
And all things at the great deceit rebel. 
Nay, if your minds to coin the flattery dare, 
Your hearts as often lay the falsehood bare. 
The gloomy truth admits of no disguise — 
Evil is on the earth! * 


For once, Gentlemen, we will not. contradict 
our old neighbor of Ferney. Yes, evil is on the 
earth; and it constitutes, in the question which 
we are discussing, the greatest of problems, the 
most serious of difficulties. Let us listen to a 
modern poet: 


Why then so great, O Sovereign Lord, 
Came evil from thy forming hand, 
That Reason, yea, and Virtue stand 

Aghast before, the sight abhorred ? 


And how can deeds so hideous glare 
Beneath the beams of holy light, 
That on the lips of hapless wight 

Dies at their view the trembling prayer? 


Why do the many parts agree _ 
So scantly in thy work sublime? 


* Tristes calculateurs des miscres humaines, 
Ne me consolez point, vous aigrissez mes peines; 
Et je ne vois en vous que I’ effort impuissant 
D’ un fier infortuné qui feint d’ étre content. 
Quel bonheur, O mortels, et faible et misérable. 
Vous criez: ‘‘ Tout est bien” d’ une voix lamentable; 
L’ univers vous dément, et votre propre cceur 
Cent fois de votre esprit a réfuté I’ erreur. 
Il le faut avouer, le mal est sur la terre. 
D_SASTRE DE LISBONNE. 


THE FATHER. 345 


And what is pestilence, or crime, 
Or death, O righteous God, to Thee? * 


We have only to put this poetry into common 
prose to obtain this argument, namely, — The 
presence of evilin the world is not compatible 
with the idea of the goodness of God. Here is 
the objection in all its force. And what is the 
answer? Simply this, that God did not create 
evil. It was not He who brought crime into the 
world. He created liberty, which is a good, and 
evil is the produce of created liberty in rebellion 
against the law of its being. I borrow from 
Jean-Jacques Rousseau the development of this 
thought. “If man,” says he, “is a free agent, 
then he acts of himself; whatever he does freely 


* Pourquoi donc, O Maitre supréme, 
As-tu créé le mal si grand 
Que la raison, la vertu méme 
S’ €pouvantent en le voyant? 


Comment, sous la sainte lumieére, 
Voit-on des actes si hideux, 

Qu’ ils font expirer la priére 

Sur les lévres du malheureux? 


Pourquoi, dans ton ceuvre céleste, 
Tant d’él“ments si peu d’ accord? 
A quoi bon le crime et la peste, 
O Dieu juste! pourquoi la mort? 
ALFRED DE MusseT, Lsforr en Dieu. 


346 LECTURE VII. 


enters not into the ordained system of Providence, 
and cannot be imputed to it. The Creator does 
not will the evil which man does, in abusing the 
liberty which He gives him. He has made him 
free in order that he may do not evil but good by 
choice. To murmur because God does not hin- 
der him from doing evil, is to murmur because 
He made him of an excellent nature, attached to 
his actions the moral character which ennobles 
them, and gave him a right to virtue. What ! in 
order to prevent man from being wicked, must he 
needs be confined to instinct and made a mere 
brute? No; God of my soul, never will I re- 
-proach Thee with having made it in Thine 
image, in order that I might be free, good, and 
happy, like Thyself. 

“It is the abuse of our faculties which renders 
us unhappy and wicked. Our vexations and our 
cares come to us from ourselves.” 

Such is Rousseau’s answer to the objection 
drawn from the existence of evil. It is a good 
one. It is so good that it is impossible to find a 
better. If we are determined not to outrage the 
human conscience by denying the reality of evil; 
if God is the sovereign good, and if there is no 
other principle of things than He; evil cannot be 


THE FATHER. 347 


accounted for otherwise than by the rebellion of 
the creature. But now, Rousseau’s answer, ex- 
cellent in itself and in the abstract, becomes pro- 
foundly inadequate, as the citizen of Geneva goes 
on to develop his theory. Evil comes from the 
creature; but each individual is not the exclusive 
source of the evils which he does and suffers. 
To attribute to each individual, not only the 
responsibility of his acts, but the origin of the 
evil germs which exist in his soul, is the un- 
tenable proposition of a desperate individualism. 
There is evidently among men a common prop- 
erty in evil; Rousseau sees it clearly enough, but 
he makes vain efforts to find in the organization 
of society and in the condition of civilization the 
causes of pain and of sin. When one has come 
to see clearly that the source of evil is in the 
creature, the close mutual connection of created 
wills and their relations with nature present a 
field for long and difficult study ; and Rousseau 
has no sooner discerned the road to truth than she 
wanders away into byroads in which the solution 
of the problem escapes him. This problem, Gen- 
tlemen, I have the intention and desire of study- 
ing some day, if God permit, with those of you 
who may be willing to undertake it with me. 


348 LECTURE VII. 


We shall then have to deal with an objection, or 
rather with a difficulty. But this difficulty, which 
we cannot now dispose of, must not hinder us 
from stating our thesis. In every well-conducted 
study, the propositions to be maintained must be 
laid down and supported before dealing with 
objections. If it were maintained that evil is the 
principle of things, it would be necessary first of 
all to endeavor to establish the thesis, in which 
the existence of good would be brought forward, 
and would constitute the objection. The objec- 
tion would have to be answered — Why has good 
appeared in the world? And I would just say in 
‘passing, that our libraries are full of treatises 
upon the origin of evil, and I have never met with 
- one upon the origin of good. It appears there- 
fore that reason has always admitted, by a sort of 
instinct, the identity of good, and of the principle 
of being. ,Our thesis is that the principle of the 
universe is good. We are going to try to demon- 
strate it. Afterwards the difficulty, evil, will pre- 
sent itself, of which it will be necessary to seek 
the explanation. This will be the natural sequel, 
and the necessary complement of the course of 
lectures which we are concluding to-day. 

I pass to another difficulty, another challenge 
which also has been addressed to me. 


THE FATHER. 349 


Your object, Christians have said to me, is to 
establish that the principle and ground of all 
things is goodness. This you will not be able to 
do without departing from your prescribed plan, 
and entering upon the domain of Christian faith 
properly so called. In your examination of the 
universe will you leave out of view Jesus Christ 
and His work? Do you not know that it is by 
means of this work that the idea of the love of 
God has been implanted in the world, and that it 
is thence you have taken it? Do you think to 
climb to the loftiest heights of thought, and to 
make the ascent by some other road than over 
the mountain of Nazareth and the hill of Cal- 
vary? | 

Gentlemen, I declared my whole mind on this 
subject at first starting. The complete idea of 
God demands, for its maintenance, the grand 
doctrinal foundations of our faith. Christian in 
. Its origin, firm faith in the love of God the Creator 
requires for its defence the armor of the Gospel. 
But before defending this belief, we must first 
establish it; we must show that it has natural 
roots in human nature. Christianity purifies and 
strengthens it, but it does not in an absolute sense 
create it. The mark of truth is that it does not 


350 LECTURE VII. 


strike us as something absolutely new, but that it 
finds an echo in the depths of our soul. When 
we meet with it, we seem to re-enter into the pos- 
session of our patrimony. The Cross of Jesus 
Christ is without all contradiction the most trans- 
cendent proof of the mercy of the Creator; but 
the Cross of Jesus Christ rather warrants the 
Christian in believing in the Divine love than 
gives him the idea of it. We must distinguish in 
the Gospel between the universal religion which 
it has restored, and the act itself of that restora- 
tion, which constitutes the Gospel in the special 
sense of the word. Now what I am here main- 
taining is the fact of the existence in modern 
society of the elements of the universal religion. 
I am far from sharing in the illusions of my fellow- 
countryman Rousseau, when he affirms that even ~ 
if he had lived in a desert isle, and had never 
known a fellow-man, he would nevertheless have 
been able to write the Professzon de fot du Vi- 
caire Savoyard. I know very well that if I were 
a Brahmin, born at the foot of the Himalayas, or 
a Chinese mandarin, I should not be able to say 
all that I am saying respecting the goodness of 
God. The light which we have received —I 
know whence it radiates ; but, by the help of that 


THE FATHER. 351 


light, I seek its kindred rays everywhere, and 
everywhere I find them in humanity. 

Let us endeavor, then, according to our plan, 
to recognize in the universe the marks of the 
Divine goodness. Let us first of all interrogate 
the human soul, which is certainly one of the 
essential elements of the world; and let us: inter- 
rogate it with regard to the great fact of religion. 

The universal religion presents to observation 
two principal forms of mental experience: the 
sense of the necessity for appeasing the Divine 
justice, and the sense of the necessity for obtain- 
ing the help of God. 

The sense of the necessity for appeasing justice 
reveals itself in sacrifices. There are sacrifices 
which are merely offerings of gratitude, and free- 
will gifts of love. But when you see the blood of 
animals flowing in the temples, and not seldom 
human blood gushing forth upon the altars, you 
will be unable to escape the conviction that man, 
in presenting himself before the Deity, feels con- 
strained to appease a justice which threatens him.. 

The sense ef the need of help shows itself in 
prayer; and this must be the especial object of 
our study, because it is in the fact of religious in- 
vocation that we shall encounter the idea, obscure 


352 LECTURE VII. 


perhaps, but real, of the goodness of the First 
Cause of the universe. 

Prayer is a fact of the universal religion. 
Whence is it that we derive a large part .of 
what knowledge we have of the ancient civili- 
zations of India and Egypt? From ruins: and 
the chief of these ruins are the ruins of temples, 
that is to say, of houses of prayer. Would we go 
further back than these monuments of stone? I 
interrogate those pioneers of science who are 
searching for the traces of antiquity in old lan- 
guages, —in the ruins of speech. I inquire, for 
example, of my learned fellow-countryman, M. 
' Adolphe Pictet: “ You who have studied, with 
patient care, the first origins of our race — what 
have you discovered in the way of religion?” 
He replies: “When I have gone as far back as 
historical speculations can carry us by the aid of 
language, it appears to me that I no longer see 
temples built by the hand of man, but, beneath 
the open vault of heaven, I see our earliest an- 
cestors sending up together the chant of prayer 
and the flame of sacrifice.” * 

And now, from this remote antiquity, I come 


* Les origines indo-européennes, ou les Aryas primitifs. — 
The above is a résumé, not a verbatim quotation. 


THE FATHER. 353 


down to the paganism, in which modern civiliza- 
tion had its beginning. Tertullian teaches us 
that the pagans, seeming to forget their idols, and 
to offer a spontaneous testimony to the truth, were 
often wont to exclaim — Great God! Good God! 
What in their mind was the order of these two 
thoughts, the thought of greatness and that of 
goodness? The pediment of a temple at Rome 
bore this famous inscription, Deo optimo maximo ; 
and Cicero explains to us that the God of the 
_ Capitol was by the Roman people named “ very 
good” on account of the benefits conferred by him, 
and “very great” on account of his power.* It 
is the idea of goodness which here appears to be 
first. But let us go more directly to the root of 
the question: What do we gather from the univer- 
sality of prayer? What is it to pray? To pray 
is to ask. Prayer may be mingled with thanks- 
givings, and with expressions of adoration, but in 
itself prayer is a petition. This petition rises to 
God: and when does it so rise? In distress, in 
anguish. It is misery, weakness, the heart cast 
down, the failing will, which unite to raise from 


* Quocirca te, Capitoline, quem propter beneficia populus 
Romanus OPTIMUM, propter vim MAXIMUM nominavit. (Pro 
domo sua, LVII.) 


23 


354 LECTURE VII. 


earth to heaven that long cry which resounds 
across all the pages of history : Help !— I analyze 
this fact, and inquire what it means. A request 
is made, and for what? For strength, for tran- 
quillity, for peace; for happiness under all its 
forms. And of whom is happiness asked? Of 
goodness. Justice is appeased, power is dreaded, 
but it is goodness which is invoked. It is so in 
human relations. The man who supplicates the 
fiercest tyrant only does so because he supposes 
that a fibre of goodness may still vibrate in that 
savage heart. Take from him that thought; 
persuade him that the last gleam of pity is extinct 
in the heart to which he appeals, and-you will 
arrest the prayer on the lips of the suppliant. 
There will remain for him only the silence of 
despair, or the heroism of resignation. 

To sum up:—Religion is a universal fact. 
“There is no religion without prayer,” said Vol- 
taire, and he never said better. There is no 
prayer without a confused, perhaps, but real, con- 
viction of the goodness of the First Cause of the 
universe. If you could stifle in man’s heart 
the feeling that the Principle of things is good, 
you would silence over the whole globe that voice 
of prayer which is ever rising to God. Thus 


THE FATHER. 355 


humanity itself testifies to the truth for which I am 
contending. Humanity prays; it believes there- 
fore in the goodness of God. This fact is an 
argument. ‘The heart of man is organized to be- 
lieve that God is good: it is the mark set by the 
Worker Himself upon His work. 

Let us study now another of the elements of the 
universe. We have heard the answer of man’s 
heart; let us ask for the answer of reason. Has 
reason nothing to tell us respecting the intentions 
of the Creator? Let us place it in presence of 
the idea of God—of the Infinite Being, and see 
what it will be able to teach us. 

To attain my object, I must explain more par- 
ticularly than as yet I have done, a word rendered 
frivolous by the levity of our heart, a word defiled 
by the disorder of our passions, and too often by 
the unworthiness, and worse, of poets and novel- 
ists, but which still, in its virgin purity, is ever 
protesting against the outrages to which it has 
been subjected: that word 1s Jove. 

This word has two principal meanings. In the 
Platonic sense of it, it is the search after what is 
beautiful, great, noble, pure, — after what, as be- 
ing of the very real nature of the soul, attracts, 
fills, and delights it. But there is another sort of 


356 LECTURE VII. 


love, which does not.pursue greatness and beauty, 
but which gives itself; a love which seeks the 
wretched to enrich him, the poor to make him 
happy, the fallen to raise him up. ‘These two 
kinds of love seem to follow different and even 
contrary laws. Here, for instance, is a description 
of what often occurs in a large city.* A man 
leaves his house in the evening in order to be 
present at performances in which I am willing to 
believe that everything bears the stamp of noble- 
ness and grandeur, or at least of a pure and 
wholesome taste. He experiences keen enjoy- 
ment, and that of an elevated kind. The spec- 
tacle over, he returns to his dwelling, and at a 
still later hour he retires at length to his repose. 
He has not long extinguished his luxurious tapers, 
perhaps, when other men, who have slept while 
others were seeking amusement, rise before day- 
light, and, lighting their small lanterns, go forth 
to succor the unfortunate, without witnesses and 
Without ostentation. 

I have taken this example from Xavier de 
Maistre. Let me give you another from scenes 
more familiar to ourselves. You know those pure 


* See the Voyage autour de ma chambre of Xavier de 
Maistre. 


THE FATHER. 357 


summer mornings, when one may truly say that 
the Alp smiles and that the mountain invites. A 
young man quits his dwelling at the first dawning 
of the day, in his hand the tourist’s staff, and his 
countenance beaming with joy. He starts on a 
mountain excursion. All day long he quaffs the 
pure air with delight, revels in the freedom of the 
pasture-grounds, in the view of the lofty summits 
and of the distant horizons. He reposes in the 
shade of the forest, drinks at the spring from the 
rock, and when he has gazed on the Alpine chain 
resplendent in the radiance of the setting sun, he 
lingers still to see — 


Twilight its farewell to the hills delaying.* 


Noble enjoyments! This young man enjoys 
because he loves. ‘The spectacle of the creation 
speaks to his heart and elevates his thoughts. He 
loves that enchanting nature, which blends in a 
marvellous union the impressions which in human 
relations are produced by the strong man’s majesty 
and the maiden’s sweetest smile. | 
_ On this same summer-day, another man has 
also risen before the sun. He is devoted to the > 
assuaging of human miseries, and he has had 


* Le crépuscule aux monts prolonger ses adieux. 


358 LECTURE VII. 


much to do. He has mounted gloomy staircases ; 
he has entered dark chambers; he has spent time 
in hospitals, in the midst of the pains of sick- 
ness; he has come, in prisons, to the relief of 
pains which are sadder still. Day, as it dawned, 
gilded the summits of the Alps, but he saw not 
that pure light of the morning. Day, as it ad- 
vanced, penetrated into the valleys, but he did 
not notice its progress. The sun set in his glory, 
but he had no opportunity to admire either the 
bright reflection of the waters, or the rosy tint 
of the mountains. And yet he too is joyful be- 
cause he loves. He loves the fulfilment of stern 
duty, he loves poverty solaced, and suffering al- 
leviated. 

Here are the two kinds of love. The disciple 
of Plato rises, far from the vulgarities of life, into 
the lofty regions of the ideal, and feeds on beauty. 
Vincent de Paul takes the place of a convict at 
the galleys that he may restore a father to his 
children. These two kinds of love seem to us 
to be contrary one to the other: the one seeks it- 
self, and the other gives itself. Still they are both 
necessary to life, for in order to give we must re- 
ceive. In the accomplishment of the works of 
goodness, the soul would be impoverished and 


THE FATHER. 359 


would end by drying up in a purely mechanical 
exercise of beneficence, had it no spring from 
which to draw forth the living waters. Man must 
himself find joy in order to diffuse it amongst his 
fellows. But mark the incomparable marvel of 
the spiritual order of things! The love which 
gives itself is able to find its worthiest object and 
its purest satisfaction in the very act of kindness. 
There is joy in self-devotion; there is happiness 
in self-sacrifice: the fountain furnishes its own 
supplies. Thus are harmonized the two contrary 
tendencies of the heart of man. “It is more 
blessed to give than to receive;” words these, 
of Jesus Christ, which, forgotten by the Evan- 
gelists, have been recorded by the Apostle St. 
Paul. And since the thought is a beautiful one, 
it has adorned the strains of the poets: says 
Lamartine — 
Dost thou happiness resign 


To another? It is thine — 
Larger for the largess — still! * 


And Victor Hugo, personifying Charity, makes 
her speak as follows: 


* 'Tout le bonheur tu cédes 
Accroit ta félicité. 


360 LECTURE VII. 


Dear’ to every man that lives, 
Joy I bring to him who gives, 
Joy I leave with him who takes.* 


_» And because this thought is profound as well 
as beautiful, it has been taken up by the philos- 
ophers. “To love,” said Leibnitz, “is to place 
one’s happiness in the happiness of another.” 
Here is the connecting link between Platonic love 
and the love which is charity. Hear how a Chris- 
tian orator comments upon these words :—‘This 
sublime definition has no need of explanations: 
it is either understood at once, or it is not under- 
stood. ‘The man who has loved understands ie 
and he who has not loved will never understand 
it. He who has loved knows that a shadow in 
the heart of the beloved one would darken his 
own: he knows that he would reckon no means 
too costly —watchings, labors, privations — by 
which to create a smile on the lips of the sorrow- 
ful; he knows that he would die to redeem a for- 
* Chére & tout homme quel qu’ il soit, 


J’ apporte la joie & qui donne 
Et je la laisse & qui recoit. 
And Shakspeare — 
‘“f, ... Mercy...is twice bless’d, 
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.” 
Merchant of Venice. —[Tr.] 


THE FATHER. 361 


feited life; he knows that he would be happy in 
another’s welfare, happy in his graces, happy in his 
virtues, happy in his glory, happy in his happi- 
ness. The man who has loved knows all this; 
he who has not loved knows nothing of it:—lI 
pity him !” * 

But the great mistake, which seems peculiar to 
our nature, is that we are ever connecting happi- 
ness with the idea of receiving, and are always 
thinking of giving as of a loss to ourselves. We 
do not understand that selfishly to keep is to be 
impoverished, while freely to relinquish is to 
be enriched. Yet here is the grand discovery of 
the spiritual life; and once this discovery made, 
in order that the spiritual life may attain its object, 
it only remains to find the strength to put it into 
practice. Selfishness is wrong, no doubt, but it 
is not only wrong, it is ignorant, for it looks for 
happiness where it is not; and it is unhappy, for it 
wanders from the paths of peace. 

Let us now apply these considerations to the 
Infinite Being, and to the problem of the end of 
the creation. Leaving ourselves to the guidance 
of the laws of our reason, let us ask what object 
we shall be able to attribute to the Creator in His 


* Lacordaire. Conférences de 1848. 


R62 LECTURE VII. 


work? Will creation be the effect of a necessity ? 
No, Sirs, for in that case everything in the world 
would be a matter of fate, and liberty would re- 
main inexplicable. Ifa blind power were direct- 
ing the Almighty Will, we should return to the 
worship of destiny. Will creation, then, be 
the carrying out of a design of which the motive 
is interest? But what conceivable interest can 
influence Him who is the plentitude of being? Or 
will creation be a duty? But whence should come 
the obligation for the Being who is in Himself the 
absolute law? Creation can only be conceived of 
as a work of love. But of what love? Of that 
‘which is the manifestation of absolute disinterest- 
edness, of supreme liberty. Allow me to intro- 
duce into this discussion some eloquent words, 
uttered in the year 1848, in the midst of the 
revolutionary agitations of Paris. The problem 
which we are debating was treated then, in the 
presence of an excited crowd, by Pére Lacor- 
daire.* He is entering upon this question: What 
can have been the motive of the creation? And 
he distinguishes between love in the Platonic 
sense of it, for which he retains the name of love, 
and the love which gives itself, which he desig- 


* Conferences de 1848, p. 78. 


THE FATHER. 363 


nates by the term—goodness. “Was it then 
love,” he asks, “ which impelled the Divine Will, 
and said to it unceasingly : Go and create? Is it 
love which we must thus regard as our first father? 
But, alas! love itself has a cause in the beauty of 
its object; and what beauty could that dead and 
icy shade possess before God, which preceded the 
universe, and to which we cannot give a name 
without betraying the truth?. . . . There remained 
something, Sirs, be very sure, more generous 
than self-interest, more elevated than duty, more 
powerful than love. Search your own hearts, 
and if you find it hard to understand me, if your 
own endowments are unknown to you, listen to 
Bossuet speaking of you :—‘When God,’ says he, 
‘made the heart of man, the first thing He planted 
there was goodness:’ goodness; that is to say, 
that virtue which does not consult self-interest, 
which does not wait for the commands of duty, 
which needs not to be solicited by the attraction of 
the beautiful, but which stoops towards its object 
all the more, as it is poorer, more miserable, more 
abandoned, more worthy of contempt! It is true, 
Sirs, it is true : man possesses that adorable faculty. 
It is not genius, nor glory, nor love, which meas- 
ures the elevation of his soul,—it is goodness. 


364. LECTURE VII. 


This it is which gives to the human countenance 
its principal and most powerful charm; this 
it is which draws us together; this it is which 
brings into communication the good and the evil, 
and which is everywhere, from heaven to earth, 
the great mediating principle. See, at the foot of 
the Alps, yon miserable crét¢in, which, eyeless, 
smileless, tearless, is not even conscious of its own 
degradation, and which looks like an effort of 
nature to insult itself in the dishonor of the 
greatest of its own productions: but beware how 
you imagine that that wretched object has not 
found the road to any heart, or that his debase- 
‘ment has deprived him of the love of all the 
world. No: he is beloved; he has a mother, he 
has brothers and sisters; he has a place at the 
cottage-hearth; he has the best place and the 
most sacred of all, just because of all he may 
seem to have the least claim to any. The bosom 
which nursed him supports him still, and the su- 
perstition of love never speaks of him but as of a 
blessing sent of God. Such is man! 

“But can I say, Such is man, without saying 
also, Such is God! From whom would man de- 
rive goodness, if God were not the primordial 
Ocean of goodness, and if, when He formed our 
heart, He had not first of all poured into it a drop 


THE FATHER. 365 


from His own? Yes, God is good; yes, good- 
ness is the attribute which includes in it all the 
-rest; and it is not without reason that antiquity 
engraved on the pediment of its temples that fa- 
mous inscription, in which goodness preceded 
greatness.” 

Now, to say nothing of the sparkling beauty of 
these words, let us pause at this definite idea: 
The Eternal, the first universal Cause of all things, 
independently of which nothing exists, could only 
create under the impelling motive of the goodness 
which gives, and not of the love. which seeks 
requital. This proposition is as clear in the ab- 
stract as any theorem of geometry. But we have 
touched the threshold of the infinite; and we 
never touch the threshold of the infinite without 
falling into some degree of bewilderment. Clear 
as this thought is in the abstract, if we wish to 
analyze it in its real substance, our view is 
confused. You understand well that goodness 
increases in the proportion in which its object is 
diminished. We are by so much more good as 
we stoop to that which is poorer and more miser- 
able. What then shall be the infinite goodness? 
In order to find it, we must infinitely diminish 
its object: and here we encounter mystery. ‘To 


366 LECTURE VII. 


diminish an object infinitely is an operation im- 
possible to our thought. This mystery is encoun- 
tered even in the mathematical sciences. We 
take a quantity, halve it, and again halve this 
half, and. so on without end, but we shall never 
obtain the infinity of smallness; for the quantity 
indefinitely divided will always remain indefi- 
nitely divisible. At whatever degree of division 
we may have arrived, between what remains and 
nothingness there extends always the abyss of the 
infinite. So I seek for the object of infinite good- 
ness: that object must be infinitely destitute. I di- 
minish accordingly the existence of the universe : 
- I extinguish all the rays of its beauty ; I take from 
it order, life, measure, color, light; I reduce it 
until it is nothing but formless matter, a some- 
thing — I know not what — which has no longer a ° 
name. Vainattempt! ‘This nameless something, 
so long as it is anything, will not be wothing. 
Between it and nothing there will always be the 
infinite. If the goodness of God is applied to any 
object which was existing independently of Him, 
however poor and abject that object be conceived 
to have been, then God is no longer the unique, 
the absolute Creator. If imagination will cross the 
abyss, we Shall come of necessity to say — 


THE FATHER. 367 


what? that the object of infinite love must have 
been non-existence. This is what the orator 
already quoted has done: —“ All perfection sup- 
poses an object to which to apply itself. The di- 
vine goodness therefore requires an object as vast 
and profound as itself. God discovered it. From 
the bosom of His own fulness He saw that being 
without beauty, without form, without life, with- 
out name, that being without being which we call 
non-existence: He heard the cry of worlds which 
were not, the cry of a measureless destitution 
calling to a measureless goodness. - Eternity was 
troubled, she said to Time: Begin!” 

This, Gentlemen, is eloquence. The thought 
in itself does not bear a rigorous analysis; but do 
not think that the lustrous beauty of the language 
is only a brilliant veil to what in itself is absurd. 
We have arrived at darkness, but it is at dark- 
ness visible; the cloud is lighted up by the ray 
that issues from it. Our goodness, finite crea- 
tures as we are, is so much the greater as the 
object on which it is bestowed is less. Infinite 
goodness must create for itself an object. It does 
not love nothingness, but a creature which is 
nothing in itself, a creature simply possible, 
which, before owing to it the blessings of ex- 


368 LECTURE VII. 


istence, shall owe to it that existence itself. The 
only being that we can represent to ourselves, by 
a sublime image, as stooping towards nothing- 
ness, is He whose look gives life. The creature 
is willed for itself, or, —to quote the words of 
Professor Secrétan, addressed to you last year, 
— the foundation of nature is grace.* We ask: 
What can have been the object of creation? Our 
reason answers: The Infinite Being can only act 
from goodness, He can have no other object than 
the happiness of His creatures. 

And now I recapitulate. We ask what is the 
object of creation; and whereas we cannot trdns- 
port ourselves into the inaccessible light of the 
Divine consciousness, we question the work of 
God in order to discern the intentions of the Cre- 
ator. From the fact that humanity prays, we 
gather the reply that man has a spontaneous 
belief in the goodness of the First Cause’ of 
the universe. We place reason in presence of the 


* La raison et le Christiantsme: twelve lectures on the ex- 
istence of God, one vol. 12mo. In the Philosophie de la 
diberté (2 vols. 8vo.) M. Secrétan has set forth, in a severely 
scientific form, the arguments of which the reader has just 
seen the oratorical expression from the pen of Ptre Lacordaire. 
This agreement is worth notice, the dates showing that no 
communication was possible. 


THE FATHER. 369 


idea of the Infinite Being; reason declares to us 
that He who is the plenitude of Being could not 
have created except from the motive of love. We 
understand that God has made all for His own 
glory, and that His glory consists in the manifes- 
tation of His goodness. These thoughts, in their 
full light, belong to the Gospel revelation, but 
they appear, under a veil, in the conceptions 
which lia at the basis of pagan religions. With- 
out entering the temple of idols, we may bow the 
knee before the pediment of the ancient sanctuary, 
and, beneath the open vault of heaven, adore, 
with the Roman people, that God whose goodness 
takes precedence of His greatness. 

The direct consequence of the principles which 
we have just laid down is that happiness is the 
object of our existence. Created by goodness, 
we can have no other end than blessedness. 

But beware of supposing that we can take for 
our guide our desire of happiness, and ourselves 
calculate its conditions. Happiness is our end; 
it is the will of our Father; but we must let our- 
selves be conducted into it. If, shutting our ears 
to the voice which lays upon us commands and 
obligations, we would take our destinies into our 
own hands ; if we made the search after happiness 

24 


370 LECTURE VII. 


our rule, understanding happiness in our own 
way, we should be taking for light fantastic 
gleams which would lead us into abysses of ruin. 
The unruly propensities of our heart would lead 
ns to make ourselves the centre of the world. To 
“live for self” is the motto of selfishness, and the 
watchword of unhappiness. To live for God is 
the way to happiness. To live to God, that is to 
say, over the ruins of our shattered selfishness, 
to enter into order, to take our place in the spir- 
itual edifice of charity, and to share in the joy 
which God allots to all His children — this is the 
end of our creation. Once lifted to the height of 
‘this thought, we are able to understand the great 
struggle which rent the conscience of the ancients, 
because in their times the light of truth illumined 
only at intervals the clouds of error which coy- 
ered the world. 

There are in man two voices; the one leading 
him to happiness, the other calling him to holi- 
ness. The first impulse of his nature is to start 
in eager ptrsuit of mere enjoyment; but ere long 
the second voice is heard, the voice of conscience, 
striving to arrest him in his course. If man do 
not obey her call, conscience becomes his chas- 
tiser. Hence arises a painful struggle of conflict- 


THE FATHER. 371 


ing feelings, and the human mind is the subject 
of a strong temptation to pacify itself by silencing 
one of the two voices. It is the history of anti- 
quity. Socrates, the wise Socrates, had indeed 
cried aloud: Woe! woe to the man who separates 
the just from the useful; and had warned men 
that happiness may be found apart from what is 
right and good. Cicero put into beautiful Latin 
the lessons of the Grecian sage; but the torn 
heart of man was not long in tearing the mantle 
of the philosopher. From the thought, full and 
complete as it is, of Socrates issued two celebrated 
sects, one of which wished to establish man’s life 
on the basis of duty without reference to happi- 
ness; and the other on the basis of happiness 
without reference to duty. 

The Stoics attached themselves to duty; but 
the need of happiness asserted itself in spite of 
them, and sought satisfaction in the gloomy 
pleasure of isolation, and in the savage joy of 
pride. The sage of these philosophers sets him- 
self free, not only from all the cares of earth, but 
from all the bonds of the heart, from all natural 
affection. Finally, by a consequence, at once 
sad and odd, of the same doctrine, the highest 
point of self-possession is to prove that man is 


372 LECTURE VII. 


master of himself, by the emancipation of suicide 
and in the liberty of death. The Stoic philoso- 
pher declares himself insensible to the ills of life ; 
he denies that pain is an evil; and, on the other 
hand, he claims the right to kill himself in order 
to escape from the ills of existence! So ended 
this famous school. At the same period, the herd 
of Epicurus’ followers, giving themselves over to 
weak and shameful indulgences, were thus in 
fact laboring with all their might (this is Montes- 
quieu’s opinion) to prepare that enormous cor- 
ruption under which were to sink together the 
glory of Rome and the civilization of the ancient 
world. 

This struggle which rent the ancient con- 
science, and which still rends the modern 
conscience wherever the goodness of God con- 
tinues veiled—this great conflict is appeased 
when we have come to understand that good- 
ness is the first principle of things, that happiness 
is our end, and that the stern voice of conscience is 
a friendly voice which warns us to shun those 
paths of error in which we should encounter 
wretchedness. ‘The conscience is the voice of 
the Master ; and the same authority which, speak- 
ing in the name of duty, bids us — “Be good,” 


THE FATHER. 373 


adds, in the gentle accents of hope—“and thou 
shalt be happy.” Happiness, duty, —these are 
the two aspects.of the Divine Will. Love is 
the solution of the universal enigma. Therefore, 
surprising as the thought may be, it is our duty 
to be happy. Our profession of faith, when we 
look above, must be: “I believe in goodness ;” 
and when we enter again into ourselves, our pro- 
fession of faith should be: “I believe in happi- 
ness.” And we do not believe in it. Not to 
believe in happiness is the root of our ills; it is 
the original misery which includes all our mis- 
eries. ‘Triflers that we are, we give ourselves up 
to pleasure because we do not believe in joy: 
frivolous, we run after giddy excitement because 
we do not believe in peace: with hearts cor- 
rupt, we abandon ourselves to the devouring 
flame of the passions, because we do not be- 
lieve in the serene light of true felicity. But the 
more the thought of God’s love enters our mind, 
the more will faith in happiness issue from our 
soul as a blessed flower. Happiness is the end 
of our being; it is the will of the Father. To 
each one of us are these words addressed: God 
loves thee; be happy! If therefore (and I ad- 
dress myself more particularly to the younger of 


374 LECTURE VII. 


my hearers), if in the depth of your soul you are 
conscious of a sudden aspiration after true felicity, 
ah! do not suffer the holy flame to be extin- 
guished, do not talk of illusions; do not, I pray 
you, resign yourselves to the prose of life; to a 
dreary and gloomy contentedness with a destiny 
which has no ideal. Your nature does not de- 
ceive you; it is you who deceive yourselves, if 
you seek your own welfare in the world of foolish 
or guilty chimeras. Listen to all the voices 
which speak to you of comfort; be attentive to all 
the words of peace. Seek, labor, pray, till you 
are able to utter, in quiet confidence, those words 
of the Psalmist: 
In peace I lay me down to rest; 
No fears of evil haunt my breast: 
In peace I sleep till dawn of day, 
For God, my God, is near alway: 
On Him in faith my cares I roll; 
He never sleeps who guards my soul.* 
God in the heart — this it is which adds zest to 
our enjoyments, sanctifies our affections, calms our 
* Je me couche sans peur, 
Je m’ endors sans frayeur, 
Sans crainte je m’ éveille. 
Dieu qui soutient ma foi 


Est toujours pres de moi, 
Et jamais ne sommeille. 


’ 


THE FATHER. 375 


griefs, and which, amidst the struggles, the sor- 
rows, and the harrowing afflictions of life, suffers 
to rise from the heart to the countenance that 
sublime smile which can shine brightly even 
through tears. 


THE END. 


Cambridge: Printed by John Wilson and Son. 


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